role: Students
Nicola C. Rossberg
Nicola Rossberg is a first-year PhD candidate at University College Cork. In 2023 she received her MSc in Data Science Cum Laude from Tilburg University. During her Master’s program she conducted research in the areas of Natural Language Processing and Deep learning. Her Master’s Thesis, “Explainable Multiclass Classification using Deep Neural Networks for Orthopaedic Applications” was completed under the supervision of Dr. Andrea Visentin and in co-operation with University College Cork. In her free time she enjoys reading and spending time exercising. She is especially fond of rowing and lifting weights.
Supervisors: Professor Barry O’Sullivan & Dr. Andrea Visentin
Akasha Shafiq
PhD Researcher
Akasha Shafiq currently pursuing a PhD.
Akasha Shafiq is a PhD researcher at University College Cork, specializing in differential privacy. Her research is focused on designing and validating privacy-preserving mechanisms that protect individual privacy while ensuring data utility. Akasha holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from COMSATS University, Islamabad, where she was part of the Network Security Research Group, and she was recognized as one of Business Post’s Tech 30 under 30 in 2024.
Her current work combines theoretical and practical approaches to differential privacy, particularly in fine-tuning privacy parameters like epsilon to optimize the privacy-utility balance. Akasha’s research spans applications in secure data sharing, IoT environments, and machine learning, where she emphasizes empirical validation and addresses the challenges of deploying differential privacy solutions in real-world settings.
Supervisor: Dr Paolo Palmieri
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Shima Rahmani
PhD Researcher
Shima is a PhD student in the School of Computer Science & Statistics, and a member of the SUMMIT group, joined TCD in 2021. She holds a BSs in Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Optimization Methods, and an MSc in Systems Engineering. Her academic background in this field led her to grasp the depth of engineered systems complexity and to harness soft computing concepts and uncertainty-based design optimization methods to analyse complex engineered systems. Through her career life, she gained years of experience in Reliability Engineering.
Shima has received numerous grants, and worked on multi-disciplinary projects with partners from different European countries, and in the field of data science.
Shima’s current research revolves around the application of AI technology in the improvement of the transportation system efficiency.
Muhammad Adeel Hafeez
PhD Researcher
Adeel is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Computer Science, University of Galway since October 2022. He is part of the Fourth Cohort of the Research Center for Training in Artificial Intelligence (CRT-AI) funded by the Science Foundation Ireland. He is working on Deep Learning-based Vision Navigation Enhancement for Autonomous Vehicles.
Adeel received his master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Institute of Space Technology (IST) Islamabad in 2018 and did his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from GCUF Faisalabad. He has also worked as a researcher at “Machine Learning for Healthcare Lab, at Istanbul Medipol University, Turkey” and worked on various neurogenerative disorder detection (i.e, Parkinson’s) using fMRI and 4D convolutional neural networks. Before that he worked as Lecturer at Chenab College of Engineering and Technology, Gujranwala Pakistan where he taught different courses in signal processing and machine learning. During his master’s, he also remained part of the Bio-signal Processing and Computational Neuroscience Lab (BiCoNeS), as a graduate research assistant and worked in EEG data analysis using Deep Learning.
Supervisors:
Dr. Ihsan Ullah and Professor Michael Madden.
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Kevlyn Kadamala
PhD Researcher
Kevlyn Kadamala is a first-year PhD student in the School of Computer Science at the University of Galway, where he is supervised by Dr Enda Barrett and Dr Des Chambers. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Fr Conceicao Rodrigues College of Engineering and a Master’s degree in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) from University of Galway. His research interests lie in the field of optimisation that involves population based strategies and reinforcement learning. His Master’s thesis involved searching for optimal neural network architectures for text classification with the help of the Genetic Algorithm and the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies algorithm. He has previously worked on the Cardamom project with the Unit for Linguistic Data in the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, at the University of Galway. Currently for his PhD thesis, Kevlyn is working on optimisation techniques for solar PV generation using deep learning.
Supervisors: Dr Enda Barrett and Dr Des Chambers.
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Vitor Gaboardi dos Santos
PhD Researcher
Vitor dos Santos is a PhD student in the School of Computing in Dublin City University (DCU) since October 2022. He is part of the fourth cohort being funded by the Science Foundation Ireland’s Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence. Supervised by Dr. Boualem Benatallah, he is specialising in Deep Learning, and he is aiming to work on the combination of vision and language models for process discovery from unstructured process artifacts.
Vitor holds a MSc in Mechatronics Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) – Brazil. In this research, he developed a computer vision system to perform local map computation and give autonomous features for a lower limb exoskeleton using a RGB-D sensor.
He holds two Bachelors degree from UFRN with first-class honours. The first one is in Electrical Engineering, with partial fulfilment in the University of Kansas – USA, and the second one is in Information Technology. In his undergraduate studies, he participated on many research projects related to robotics, image processing, computer vision and deep learning. Some of the projects includes developing an automated system to separate objects using image processing and a robotic arm, developed at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) – USA; and performing automatic license plate recognition using convolutional neural networks, developed at UFRN. Many papers were published at conferences during his research period.
Before starting his PhD, he was a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN), teaching classes on Electronics and Programming, advising students on internships and projects, and participating on projects related to object detection. Apart from academics, he likes to play football, go to the beach, walk in parks and explore nature.
Supervisors: Professor Boualem Bentatallah
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Muhammad Asad
PhD Researcher
Asad has been a Ph.D. student at the SFI Center for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science Institute, the University of Galway since November 2022. He is part of the Fourth Cohort funded by the Science Foundation Ireland’s Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence, where he is researching Deep Learning Uncertainty Estimation in Autonomous Vehicles.He received his master’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering in 2019 from GIK Institute and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering in 2016 from UET. Asad’s MS thesis was focused on Computational Advertisement. He has expertise in computer vision, deep learning, and data sciences Asad has worked as a lecturer and research fellow at the Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision (iVision) Lab, Institute of Space Technology (IST), Pakistan, where he taught computer science courses and researched the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to object detection, satellite image analysis, document forensic analysis, medical image analysis, and deep object concealment. Previously he worked as a data scientist at VisionX.Currently, he is a core member of the iVision Lab and Pakistan Pattern Recognition Society (PPRS), an official chapter of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) in Pakistan. Besides research and teaching, Asad has been a part of organizing committees for several local and international conferences, workshops, and summer schools for education, awareness, and training in artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship.
Supervisors: Professor Michael Madden & Dr. Ihsan Ullah
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Vivek Manmohan Bulani
PhD Researcher
Vivek Bulani is a PhD student in the School of Computing in Dublin City University from October 2022. He is part of the Fourth Cohort being funded by the Science Foundation Ireland’s Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence. He has recently graduated with a First – class Honours (1.1) degree in MSc Data and Computational Science from University College Dublin, Ireland. As a part of master’s thesis, he has worked on the Federated Learning framework for Recommendation Systems. His focus was on exploring Model-Poisoning Attacks on the Federated Recommendation Model and proposing defence strategies against them.He has completed his Bachelor in Computer Engineering from Pune University, India with First – class Honours. In his undergraduate studies, he has developed various projects at the intersection of Data Science and Health Industry. His Final Year project work used Photoplethysmogram signals to predict the presence of any illness in the human body using the principles of Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Ayurveda, thus helping in early detection and treatment of human diseases. He has also published a survey paper on Machine Learning Algorithms for Diabetes Detection. He has been among the top five University Rank Holders in his first year of bachelor’s.For his PhD, he is aiming to work on the use of Deep Learning techniques in Cryptocurrency with primary focus on user portfolios. Apart from academics, he likes to play Football and Badminton, walking and exploring in the midst of nature.
Supervisors – Dr. Martin Crane, Dr. Marija Bezbradica.
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Samaksh Chandra
PhD Researcher
My name is Samaksh, you can call me Sam for short. I am a doctoral researcher in the field of artificial intelligence at CRT in AI. I have worked on building recommender systems, predictive analytics for classification and regression problems, federated learning for energy modelling of battery electric vehicles, and using machine learning for product matching tasks. My interests are towards human-compatible AI systems, explainable AI, constraint programming and optimization problems, federated learning, and applied machine learning. My supervisors are Dr. Steve Prestwich and Dr. Andrea Visentin (UCC).
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Daniella Traynor
PhD Researcher
Daniella Traynor recently graduated with a first-class honours degree in Digital Humanities from University College Cork and was awarded UCCDH student of the year. Her final year project ExploringSHUA focused on using deep maps to explore socioeconomic changes in urban areas. Her artefact was nominated for the 2021 Global DH awards for best data visualisation. Since then, she has assisted the department in academic research projects while simultaneously working on part-time data projects and various contracts in technical consultancy. Daniella has owned and run a web development company for 5+ years and did her undergraduate work experience with Google. She is now a full-time PhD student with the CRT-AI. Her research aims to bring forward the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence into Digital Humanities, with her thesis focusing on methods for preserving and promoting cultural heritage. Her supervisors are Professor Claire Connolly, Dr. Rosane Mingham and Dr. Orla Murphy.
OTHER TEAM MEMBERS
Ege Duran
PhD Researcher
Ege Duran received her Bachelor’s degree from Yasar University, Department of Industrial Engineering in 2019. She received her Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Yasar University, Izmir, Türkiye in 2022. She continues her PhD studies in Computer Science at UCC, Ireland. Her research interests include Modelling, Optimisation and Heuristic approaches. Her supervisor is Professor Barry O’Sullivan, UCC.
Recent publications: Duran, E. et al. (2020). The Uniform Parallel Machine Scheduling Problem: A Case Study. In: Durakbasa, N., Gençyılmaz, M. (eds) Proceedings of the International Symposium for Production Research 2019. ISPR ISPR 2019 2019. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31343-2_69
Martha S. Shaka
PhD Researcher
Martha Shaka is pursuing her PhD in computer science at the University College Cork, supervised by Professor Ken Brown and Professor Barry O’Sullivan. Her research interests focus on developing novel data analytics and deep learning techniques, especially for applications in health science, multi-agent interaction and resource optimisation in intelligent systems. She received an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Leeds in 2021. Her thesis leveraged deep learning techniques to capture essential differences and classify C.elegans mutant strains based on their behaviours to understand behaviour dynamics in relation to the nervous system.
Martha is one of the co-founders of capital space Ltd, aiming to enhance innovation and entrepreneurship through skills development and technology in Tanzania. In addition, She is an assistant lecturer at the University of Dodoma (UDOM) and occasionally volunteers to teach programming languages to girls in public high schools and organise local and national events inclined to share AI knowledge, such as Annual IndabaX Conferences and UDOM AI Community. Ms Martha enjoys reading and is a massive fan of football.
Supervisor: Professor Ken Brown
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