By blending my academic achievements, professional experience, and research interests, I strive to make meaningful contributions to the scientific community while driving innovation and solving real-world challenges.
Contact:
- Academic Inquiry:
ali.zia at anu.edu.au - Research Collaboration:
ali.zia at csiro.au - General:
alizia369 at gmail.com
Social and Research Profiles:
Biography
Dr. Ali Zia is an accomplished researcher, academic, and I.T. professional, holding a Ph.D. degree from Griffith University and a master’s from Australian National University. Currently, he is privileged to serve as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian National University (ANU). Prior to this, he made notable contributions as a researcher at the ARC Research Hub for Driving Farming Productivity and Disease Prevention, based at Griffith University, Australia. Moreover, he had the honor of working as a full-stack programmer at Griffith University and as an Assistant Professor at COMSATS University, Lahore, Pakistan. His dedication to advancing research and development skills has also led him to be a valued researcher at the Neville Roach Laboratory, NICTA, Sydney, Australia. In addition, he has gained valuable industry experience by working at various esteemed software houses in Pakistan.
His research endeavors focus on cutting-edge domains such as pattern recognition, machine learning, and computer vision. Particularly he is passionate about investigating the potential of machine learning models in 3D computer vision, topological data analysis, action recognition/localization, and spectral/hyperspectral imaging techniques. These research areas have immense applications in diverse fields, including agriculture, remote sensing, electricity load forecasting, medicine, and environmental informatics.
Education:
Doctor of Philosophy (Artificial Intelligence) from Griffith University, Australia, 2020. Thesis: Exploring extrinsic spectral properties of hyperspectral image for 3D computer vision.
Master’s in Computing from Australia National University, Australia, 2009. Thesis/Project: Structured object recognition for content-based image retrieval.
B.Sc. in Computer Sciences (Hons.) from Punjab University, Pakistan, 2006. Final Project: Biometric security system with control of electric devices of a building.
Recent Funding:
| Funder: | Project Title: | Awarded | Year |
| MRFF DAAC Mission (Applied) | Multi-modal Dementia Patient Monitoring Using Higher Order Representational Deep Learning. | $2.7M | 2024 |
| CSIRO (CSIRO-Chinese Academy of Sscience partnership project) | Novel AI and hyperspectral-based tool to select salt-tolerant legumes to increase grain and pasture production | $500,000 | 2023 |
| CSIRO | Analyzing protein content in different varieties of chickpeas using hyperspectral imaging and machine learning | $600,000 | 2023 |
| CSIRO (AI4M) | 3D hyperspectral analysis of meat to identify meat contamination project | $135,000 | 2022 |
Supervision:
Dr. Ali Zia is currently co-supervising four Ph.D. candidates. His academic mentorship extends to having supervised six master’s by research and thirty-three bachelor’s students to completion.
PhD Students:
- Zijian Zhu – Australian Nation University and
CAS - Yajie Sun – Griffith University
- Muhammad Hussnain, Griffith University and CSIRO
- Zekun Long – Griffith University and CSIRO.
Selected Courses Taught and Designed:
Dr. Ali Zia has more than a decade of teaching experience in Australia and Pakistan. Some of the courses that he taught are as follows:
- Introduction to Big Data Analytics.
- Sensor Networks.
- Introduction to Programming.
- Software Engineering.
- Advanced Software Engineering.
- Electric Circuits.
- Computer Vision.
- Human-Computer Interaction.
- Computing for Management.
- Programming Principals.
Recent Awards and Membership:
| Name of Prize/Award | Institution/Organisation | Year |
| Runner-up Paper Award for Contrastive-Aware ViT for Weakly Supervised Semantic Segmentation | DICTA 2023 | 2023 |
| ICML 2023 Topological Deep Learning Challenge | ICML Topology and Geometry (TAG) in Machine Learning Team | 2023 |
| Nominated for CERC Committee and AgCatalyst committee at Agriculture and Food business unit due to active leadership quality | CSIRO | 2023 |
Selected Profession Membership/Collaborations:
- Australian Computer Society.
- Queensland AI Hub.
- Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
- Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence.
- IEEE.
- Ongoing collaboration in various Universities in the USA, Pakistan, the Middle East and China.
Research Interests:
Higher Order Representation Learning, 3D computer vision, Hyperspectral Imaging, Behavior Recognition and Deep Topological data analysis.
Publications:
Please click on the following link for publication details:
https://ali-zia.me/?page_id=22
Selected Research Projects:
- Livestock behaviour recognition – from course to fine-grain behaviour.
- Meat contamination detection using hyperspectral imaging.
- Parkinson’s patient monitoring system.
- Smart home automation for behaviour recognition.
- Determining Mosaic Resilience in Sugarcane Plants using Hyperspectral Images.
- Chickpea variety profiling using hyperspectral data.
- Predicting salt-tolerance in legumes using hyperspectral data.
- Beneficial insect spreading.
- Document reconstruction.
Experience Summary:
| Title | Organization | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Future Science Platform under Object Detection Activity | Australian National University and CSIRO, Australia | Research and development equivalent to level B university grade. |
| Postdoctoral Researcher | ARC Hub for Driving Farming Productivity and Disease Prevention, Griffith University, Australia | Research and development equivalent to the level A university grade. |
| Programmer Developer | Griffith Online Team, Griffith University, Australia | Full stack from solution architect to programmer at HEW Level 6 step 3 |
| Lab Instructor, Lecturer, and Student Coach | Griffith University, Australia | Casual. Conducting labs, tutorials, and lectures |
| Assistant Professor | COMSATS University, Pakistan | Teaching, Research, and Solution Architect |
| Research Scholar | NICTA Neville Roach, Australia | Research and Development |
| Software Engineer | Various Software houses like Systems Ltd, Cambridge Docs, and Techlogix, Pakistan | Software Development and Quality Assurance |
| Teaching Assistant | Punjab University Pakistan | Casual. Conducting labs, tutorials, and lectures |