Anwar Hossain Efat
MS student and Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of Computer Science, Idaho State University
I study how people experience, build, and trust interactive and intelligent systems. My work sits between human–computer interaction and software engineering.
For my MS thesis, supervised by Dr. Farjana Z. Eishita, I am building a serious game for desktop, Android, and VR that delivers graded exposure therapy for germophobia and adapts to the player’s heart rate in real time. With Dr. Minhaz F. Zibran, I study how developers respond to pull requests written by AI coding agents. I also audit how health and wellness apps for VR headsets disclose and protect the sensitive data they collect, and I am scaling exam timetabling to a million students with parallel graph colouring.
Before coming to Idaho State, I was a Lecturer in Computer Science and Engineering at IUBAT in Dhaka, and my earlier research applied machine learning and explainable AI to medical diagnosis. I am looking for PhD opportunities in HCI and software engineering.
Email: anwarhossainefat@isu.edu
Research interests
- Human–computer interaction
- Augmented and virtual reality
- Serious games for health
- Human factors of AI-assisted development
- Privacy and security of immersive systems
- Explainable AI
News
- Released version 2.0 of SnakeGo, a Snake game you can play in the browser, first built for CS 5539: Introduction to Computer Game Development. It now has eight levels, two modes, sound, and phone controls.
- Launched DeltaDraw, a free, open-source toolkit for learning Theory of Computation in the browser.
- Selected by my dean to represent the College of Science and Engineering at the Idaho Governor Candidates Event, hosted by ASISU at Idaho State University.
- Represented the Department of Computer Science at Experience the Roar, Idaho State University’s open house for prospective students in Pocatello.
- Presented our systematic literature review, Cybersecurity Threats and Vulnerabilities in Virtual Reality Games, at ICCSIT 2026 in Paris, France.
- Represented the Department of Computer Science at the Bengal Block Party, the finale of ISU Celebration Week.
- Completed the ISU Summer Grant Writing Workshop offered by the Graduate School.
- Presented Merge or Malice? Investigating Toxicity Around AI Pull Requests at EASE 2026 in Glasgow, UK. We were invited to extend it for Information and Software Technology.
- Became Secretary of the Bangladesh Student Association at Idaho State University.
- Presented our usability study of the gamified germophobia exposure-therapy game at IEEE i-ETC 2026, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. The paper is now published in IEEE Xplore.
- Presented two papers at IEEE ICMI 2026 in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, using machine learning and explainable AI to study university admission outcomes and procrastination.
- Started the MS in Computer Science at Idaho State University as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, with a non-resident tuition waiver.
Selected publications
All 49 publications →-
XRSECCybersecurity Threats and Vulnerabilities in Virtual Reality Games: A Systematic Literature ReviewIn International Conference on Computer Science and Information Technology (ICCSIT 2026). ACM Digital Library, 2026, pp. 1–17
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SEMerge or Malice? Investigating Toxicity Around AI Pull RequestsIn Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE) Conference. ACM Digital Library, 2026, pp. 1–5
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HCIXRGamified Virtual Exposure Therapy for Germophobia: A Cross-Platform Based Graphical User Interface Usability StudyIn Intermountain Engineering, Technology, and Computing Conference (i-ETC). IEEE, 2026, pp. 1–6
Education
- Aug 2025 – May 2027 (expected)MS in Computer ScienceIdaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho · GPA 4.00/4.00
- Jan 2018 – Sep 2023BSc in Computer Science and EngineeringRajshahi University of Engineering and Technology (RUET), Bangladesh · GPA 3.59/4.00
Positions
- Aug 2025 – presentGraduate Teaching AssistantDepartment of Computer Science, Idaho State University
- Dec 2023 – Jul 2025LecturerDepartment of CSE, IUBAT, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Sep 2023 – Nov 2023LecturerDepartment of CSE, North Bengal International University, Rajshahi