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  • Dr Syed Afaq Ali Shah

    Dr. Syed Afaq Shah is a Senior Lecturer (Computer Science) in the School of Science and core member of Centre for AI and Machine Learning, ECU.

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Dr Syed Afaq Ali Shah

Dr. Syed Afaq Ali Shah is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Science and a member of the Centre for AI and Machine Learning.

Current Teaching

  • CSI6208 - Programming Principles (Postgraduate)
  • CSP2151 - Programming Fundamentals

Background

Dr. Afaq Shah is a Senior Lecturer at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Perth. He leads the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Research (RAIR) Group, advancing interdisciplinary research in artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision, and data-driven technologies. He actively seeks and recruits high-quality PhD candidates to undertake research in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and related areas.

Before joining ECU, Dr. Shah served as a Lecturer at Murdoch University (2018-2021) and as a Lecturer in Information and Communication Technology at Central Queensland University in 2018. He earned his PhD from The University of Western Australia, where he subsequently worked as a Research Fellow for two and a half years. Prior to commencing his academic career, he spent seven years in the aviation industry, progressing from Project Manager to Deputy Chief Engineer (Information Technology), where he led the development and implementation of large-scale technology initiatives.

Dr. Shah's research focuses on Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Agentic AI, Computational Empathy for AI systems, Computer Vision, and Health Analytics. His work involves developing advanced AI techniques for image, video, and multimodal data analysis, with applications spanning healthcare, agriculture, remote sensing, security, surveillance, and intelligent monitoring systems. His research has contributed significantly to areas including machine learning, 3D feature descriptors, object recognition and reconstruction, image segmentation, biometrics, 2D and 3D scene understanding, human-computer interaction, action and gesture recognition, image captioning, and predictive health analytics, particularly for cardiovascular and Alzheimer's disease detection.

He has authored and co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals and premier international conferences, including the International Journal of Computer Vision (IJCV), IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS), Pattern Recognition, NeurIPS, and ECCV. He is also co-author of the book ‘A Guide to Convolutional Neural Networks for Computer Vision’, which provides a comprehensive overview of modern deep learning techniques for visual intelligence.

Dr. Shah has secured more than AUD $350,000 in competitive research funding and actively collaborates with academic, industry, and government partners on applied AI research. He is a Certified Professional of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), United Kingdom, reflecting his commitment to both professional excellence and high-quality teaching and learning.

Professional Memberships

  • 2019-Present – Australian Computer Society Member
  • 2020-Present – Fellow Higher Education Academy (FHEA), UK
  • Life Member of Pakistan Engineering Council (Member of Washington Accord)

Awards and Recognition

National and International Awards

  • 2020 – DST Best Contribution to Science Award, Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA) 2020
  • 2020 - ACU Early Career Conference Award
  • 2019 - Australian Computer Society Certified Professional
  • 2018 - NeurIPS Conference Travel Award
  • 2017 - UWA Research Collaboration Award
  • 2016 - UWA Start Something Award for Research Impact through Enterprise

University and National Teaching Awards

  • 2026 - 2026 FIT Dean’s Awards for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (In collaboration with Monash)
  • 2020 - Fellow Higher Education Academy (FHEA), UK
  • 2019 – Associate Fellow, Higher Education Academy (FHEA), UK
  • 2016 - Nominated for Teaching and Learning Excellence Award (UWA)

Media

National and International Research Positions

  • 2025 – General Chair, Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation (ACRA)
  • 2024 - IEEE , Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA) Workshop Chair
  • 2023 – IEEE , Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications (DICTA) Awards Chair
  • 2022 - Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Workshop Chair
  • 2021-Present – Associate Editor, Network: Computation in Neural Systems
  • 2021 – Workshop and Special Session Chair, DICTA2021
  • 2020 – Guest Editor, Remote Sensing Journal
  • 2020-Present – Lead Reviewer Serbian Research Fund and reviewer, Mitacs Accelerate grant (Canada).
  • 2017-2018 – Program committee member Advanced Concepts for Intelligent Vision Systems (ACIVS).

Research Areas and Interests

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Machine Learning
  • Deep Learning
  • Agentic AI
  • Generative AI
  • Large Language Models
  • Pattern recognition
  • Computer Vision
  • Health Analytics
  • Facial Analysis
  • Robotics and Autonomous Systems
  • Object Detection, Recognition and Segmentation
  • Image/video Processing
  • Digital AgriTech

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