Imran Naseem

Education

• Ph.D. in Machine Learning, School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Western Australia (2008–2010) — Thesis: Person Identification using Face and Speech Biometrics
• M.S. in Electrical Engineering (Machine Learning), King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia (2003–2005) — Thesis: Combining Classifiers Using the Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence
• B.E. in Electrical Engineering, NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi (1998–2002)

Research Interests

• Neural Machine Translation (NMT), LLMs & SLMs
• Robust Face Recognition, Biometrics & Scene Understanding
• Bioinformatics & AI for Healthcare
• Combining Classifiers & Ensemble Learning
• Statistical Signal Processing & Adaptive (Fractional/q-Calculus) Algorithms

Biography

Dr. Imran Naseem joined Habib University as Associate Professor in the Computer Science Program in July 2025, bringing over 20 years of combined academic and industry experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and signal processing.

Immediately prior to Habib University, Dr. Naseem spent over two years (2023–2025) as AI R&D Manager at Alexa Translations (Toronto, Canada), heading the company’s AI division — overseeing data, AI-science, and MLOps teams — and driving the development of state-of-the-art Neural Machine Translation, LLM, and SLM systems for enterprise translation.

Alongside his industry role, he held a long-standing academic post at the Karachi Institute of Economics and Technology (KIET), rising from Associate Professor (2011–2018) to Professor (2018–2025) in the GSSE/Electrical Engineering department, where he headed the Machine Learning Research Group and the Curriculum Review Committee, and taught courses spanning Artificial Intelligence, Digital Signal/Image Processing, Natural Language Processing, and Pattern Classification.

Dr. Naseem also has an ongoing international academic affiliation with the University of Western Australia (UWA), where he has served as Adjunct Associate Professor since 2022, following a decade as Adjunct Senior Research Fellow (2013–2022) at the same institution. Since 2015, he has additionally served as Chief AI Architect and a founding member of Lambda Theta, a Karachi-based AI consultancy, leading applied AI products including Pakistan’s first AI-based volumetric-weight measurement system (deployed with TCS) and a vision-based SOP-monitoring system deployed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Naseem was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Multi-Sensor Processing and Content Analysis, Curtin University (2010–2011), working on an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant for video-based face recognition, and held Assistant Professor appointments at FAST-NUCES and Iqra University (2005–2008). He completed his Ph.D. in Machine Learning at the University of Western Australia and holds an M.S. from KFUPM and a B.E. from NED University.

Dr. Naseem has supervised multiple Ph.D. and M.S. theses and maintains active international research collaborations in adaptive algorithms, pattern recognition, and AI-driven biometric security systems.

Current Research Collaborations

• University of Western Australia (UWA): Ongoing collaborative research in machine learning and biometrics; external Ph.D. co-supervisor alongside Prof. Mohammed Bennamoun and Prof. Roberto Togneri.

Graduate Supervision

Ph.D. Theses Supervised:

• Design of Novel Incremental Least Mean Square Algorithms — S. S. U. Qadri, 2023, KIET
• Feature Extraction for Watermarking and Hashing of Digital Images — M. F. Khan, 2020, KIET
• Design of Adaptive Algorithms for Estimation in Single-Agent and Multi-Agent Environments — M. Arif, 2018, KIET
• View-based Biometrics — A. Alim, 2018, KIET
• Feature Learning and Structured Prediction for Scene Understanding (co-supervised) — S. H. Khan, 2016, UWA

M.S. Theses Supervised:

• Ensemble Learning Based Traffic Matrix Estimation — A. Sultan, 2020, KIET
• Glioma Tumor Grading with CNN on MRI using Automated Slice Selection — U. Farooq, 2019, KIET
• Channel Estimation for Incremental Distributed Networks Using q-LMS Algorithm — S. Samreen, 2019, KIET
• A Novel Bilinear-form q-LMS for Non-Linear System Identification — Noor ul Ain, KIET
• Quantum Calculus for the Analysis of Complex Systems — A. Sadiq, 2018, KIET
• Machine Learning Approaches for the Prediction of Protein Sequences — S. Khan, 2015, KIET

Research Grants & Funding

• NCBC (HEC): Hetro-Cloud: Developing Your Own Low-Cost and Scalable Cloud with Heterogeneous Computing Resources — Co-PI, PKR 14M (~US$100K), started Jan 2021
• NCAI (HEC): Point-of-Care Electronic Test Kit for Rapid Detection of Pathogens using Graphene-Transistors as Biosensors — Co-PI, PKR 14M (~US$100K), started Mar 2021
• IGNITE (formerly ICT R&D): Design and Development of an FPGA-Based Multi-Scale Face Recognition System — PI, PKR 13.8M (~US$140K); completed May 2018; project received national and international media coverage
• Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grants: Contributor on multiple grants (DP0771294, DP0664228, DP0881813, DP110103336) in video-based face recognition and image processing

Honors & Awards

• Signal and Information Processing (SIP) Lab Publication Prize (2009), for a publication in IEEE TPAMI
• Scholarship for International Research Fees (SIRF) and University International Stipend (UIS) awards, University of Western Australia
• GRS Travel Grant, IEEE ICIP 2009
• National media recognition for face recognition research (IGNITE-funded FPGA face recognition system)
• Research Assistantship, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (2003–2005)
• Merit University Assistance Scholarship, NED University of Engineering and Technology
• Completed Ph.D. in approximately two years, submitted as a compilation of publications
• Invited speaker and workshop instructor on machine learning/neural networks, Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP)
• Regular reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, Pattern Recognition, and HEC research funding panels

Selected Publications

• Zubair, M., Alim, M. A., Naseem, I., Alam, M. M., Su’ud, M. M. “Reverse Image Search for Collage: A Novel Local Feature-Based Framework.” IEEE Access, Vol. 11, 2023.
• Alassafi, M. O., Ibrahim, M. S., Naseem, I., et al. “A Novel Deep Learning Architecture with Image Diffusion for Robust Face Presentation Attack Detection.” IEEE Access, Vol. 11, 2023.
• Fazal, E., Ibrahim, M. S., Park, S., Naseem, I., Wahab, A. “Anticancer Peptides Classification using Kernel Sparse Representation Classifier.” IEEE Access, Vol. 11, 2023.
• Wahab, A., Khan, S., Naseem, I., Ye, J. C. “Performance Analysis of Fractional Learning Algorithms.” IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 70, 2022.
• Sadiq, A., Naseem, I., Khan, S., Moinuddin, M., Togneri, R., Bennamoun, M. “A Novel Quantum Calculus-Based Complex Least Mean Square Algorithm (q-CLMS).” Applied Intelligence, 2022.
• Sadiq, A., Yahya, N., Tang, T. B., Hashim, H., Naseem, I. “Wavelet-Based Fractal Analysis of rs-fMRI for Classification of Alzheimer’s Disease.” Sensors, 22(9): 3102, 2022.
• Al-Saggaf, U. M., Usman, M., Naseem, I., et al. “ECM-LSE: Prediction of Extracellular Matrix Proteins using Deep Latent Space Encoding of k-Spaced Amino Acid Pairs.” Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 2021.
• Naseem, I., Togneri, R., Bennamoun, M. “Linear Regression for Face Recognition.” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 32, No. 11, pp. 2106–2112, 2010. (1,200+ citations)
• Naseem, I., Togneri, R., Bennamoun, M. “Robust Regression for Face Recognition.” Pattern Recognition, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 104–118, 2012.

Full publication list of 50+ peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters available on request.

Professional Affiliations

• Registered Professional Engineer, Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) — Registration No. Elect/18169
• Accredited Professional Electronic Engineer, Engineers Australia