Professional Activities 

Editorships 

• • Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence

  • Associate Editor, IEEE Access 

  • Associate Editor, IECE Transactions on Cognitive Systems

  • Guest Editor,  International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing, Inderscience, Special Issue, “Emerging Applications for IoT, Edge Computing and AI” with A. Shankar and D.A. Karras, 2024.

  • Guest Editor, Frontiers in Public Health, Special issue on "Quality of Life Improvement: Smart Approaches for the Working and Aging Populations" with S. Barakovic and J. Barakovic Husic, 2023

  • Guest Editor, Algorithms, Special issue on "Machine Learning in Social Network Analytics" with M. Prasad, F. Karimi, D. Vishwakarma, 2023

  • Guest Editor, Electronics, Special issue on "Heterogeneous and Parallel Computing for Cyber Physical Systems" with A. Shankar, 2023

  • Guest Editor, Intelligent Automation & Soft Computing, Special issue on "Innovation in Mechatronics Approaches for Physical Human-Robot Interaction and Co-Manipulation" with S. Shankar, 2023

  • Guest Editor, Sustainability, Special issue on "Latest Trends for Renewable Energy and Enabled Technologies for Sustainable Development" with S. Shankar, 2023

  • Guest Editor, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics,  Special Issue on "Cybersecurity Intelligence in the Healthcare System" with A. Singh, A. Kumar, M. K. Khan, 2022

  • Guest Editor,  Journal of Imaging, MDPI, Special Issue on "Deepfakes, Fake News and Multimedia Manipulation from Generation to Detection", 2022

  • Editorial Board Member, Digital Technologies Research and Applications (DTRA), Semiyearly publication

  • Topics Board Member, Journal of Imaging, MDPI

  • Junior Editorial Board, Journal of Surveillance, Security and Safety

  • Guest Editor, IEEE Access, Special issue on "Advanced Internet of Things for Smart Cyber-Physical Infrastructure Systems" with P. Yang, W. Wu, Zofia Lukzos, 2021

  • Guest Editor, Journal of Healthcare Engineering (Hindawi), Special issue on "Vision Based Computing Systems for Healthcare Applications" with S. Murala and S.K. Vipparthi, 2019

Co-organizer of Events

• • Special Session On ‘Attacks and Defenses in Cybersecurity, User Authentication and Machine Learning’ in 1st International Conference on Advanced Network Technologies and Computational Intelligence, India, April 5-6, 2024.

  • General Chair, EAI HealthWear 2021 - 3rd EAI International Conference on Wearables in Healthcare, November 26-27, 2021, Virtual.

  • The IJCB 2017 competition on generalized face presentation attack detection in mobile authentication scenarios, hosted by the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2017), October 1-4, 2017, Denver, Colorado, USA.

External Research Examining

• • External examiner for a PhD dissertation at Vels Institute of Science, Technology & Advanced Studies, India (2024).

  • External examiner for PhD dissertations at Vellore Institute of Technology, India (2023).

  • External examiner for a PhD dissertation at National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli, India (2022)

  • External examiner for a PhD dissertation at Savitribai Phule Pune University, India (2022).

  • External examiner for a PhD dissertation at Vellore Institute of Technology, India (2021).

  • External examiner for a PhD dissertation at Vellore Institute of Technology, India (2018).

Keynote Speaker

• • Zahid Akhtar, "AI at the Crossroads: Cybersecurity, Adversarial Attacks, and Digital Trust", International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Network Security (ICCINS), Raipur, India, April 3, 2025.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Security-Centered AI: Authentication, LLMs, and Cybersecurity", International Conferences on Engineering Cyber-Physical Systems and Critical Infrastructures (ECPS&CI), Brahmapur, India, November 9, 2024.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Inventions and Emerging Trends in Research Methodology",  International Multidisciplinary Conference on Emerging Trends in Research Methodology in Higher Education System, India, March 9, 2024.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "AI and User Authentication: Adversarial Attacks and Defenses", International Conference on Computational Sciences and Sustainable Technologies (ICCSST), Bengaluru, India, May 9,  2023.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Reliability of Biometrics and Machine Learning against Spoofing, Deepfakes and Adversarial Examples", First International Conference on ComputationaL Intelligence Paradigms (CLIP), Tiruchirappalli, India, December 8, 2022.

Invited Talks

• • Zahid Akhtar, "AI-Driven Education, Innovation, and Cyber Trust", Faculty Development Program on Reinventing Pedagogy in the Age of AI: Methods, Approaches and Perspectives, University of Delhi, India, January 17, 2025.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "On the (In-)Security of AI, Biometrics and Cybersecurity", Faculty Development Programme on “Demystifying Artificial Intelligence and its Applications by Blockchain and Cyber Security”, Vellore Institute of Technology, India, November 29, 2023.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Innovation and Future Trends in Computer Science & Engineering", Faculty Development Program on Teaching and Research Essentials, Chandigarh University, India, June 27, 2023.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Dependability of Biometric and Machine Learning against Spoofing, Deepfakes and Adversarial Examples", Delhi Technological University, India, December 2021.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Security of Biometric Systems against Spoofing Attacks and Deepfakes", Xiamen University Malaysia, Malaysia, October 2021.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Biometrics: In Search of Identity and Security", University of Trento, Italy, February 2016.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Biometrics: Where We Are", University of Pune, India, August 2015.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Multimodal Biometrics/Emotion Recognition", University of Udine, Italy, November 2013.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Biometric Spoofing Attacks", Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India, October 2013.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Multimodal Biometric Fusion: Performance Under Spoof Attacks", Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2013.

  • Zahid Akhtar, “Security of Multimodal Biometrics”, Bremen University, Germany, February 2013.

  • Zahid Akhtar, "Biometrics in Security Applications", University of Pune, India, May 2009.

  • Zahid Akhtar, “Non Destructive Defect Detection in Radiographic Images”, University of Cagliari, Italy, January 2008.

International Conference Advisory Committee Member 

• • 2nd International Conference on Cyber Intelligence and Information Retrieval (CIIR), 14- 15 December, 2023, Kolkata, India 

  • International Conference on Blockchain and Machine Intelligence Applications (ICBMIA), 11-12 October, 2023, India 

  • 4th International Conference on Emerging Technology Trends in Electronics, Communication and Networking (ET2ECN 2021), 17- 18 November 2021, India.

Program Committee Member 

• • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), April 28-30, 2024, Angers, France.

  • International Conference on Intelligent Perception and Computer Vision (CIPCV), May 17-19, 2024, Xiamen, China.

  • International Symposium on Signal Processing Systems (SSPS), March 22-24, 2024, Xi’an, China.

  • International Conference on Systems and Networks Communications (ICSNC), November 13-17, 2023, Valencia, Spain.

  • International Conference on Ambient Systems, Networks and Technologies (ANT), March 15-17, 2023, Leuven, Belgium.

  • International Conference on Big Data Analytics, Data Mining and Computational Intelligence Porto (BIGDACI), July 16-18, 2023,  Porto, Portugal.

  • International Conference on Machine Learning, Image Processing, Network Security and Data Sciences (MIND), December 21-22, 2023, Hamirpur, India.

  • International Conference on Networks and Communications (NET), January 2-3, 2023, Zurich, Switzerland.

  • International Conference on AI-generated Content (AIGC), August 25-26, 2023, Shanghai, China.

  • International Conference on Image, Video and Signal Processing (IVSP), March 24-26, 2023, Singapore.

  •  International Workshop on Machine Learning and Deep Learning (WMLDL), March 7, 2023, M'Sila, Algeria.

  • International Conference on Computing and Pattern Recognition (ICCPR), October 27-29, 2023, Qingdao, China. 

  • International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR), September 22-24, 2023, Xiamen, China.

  • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), April 24-26, 2023, Prague, Czech Republic. 

  • International Conference on Computing and Artificial Intelligence (ICCAI),  March 17-20, 2023, Tianjin, China

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), November 24-26,  2023, Dali, China.

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), July 21-23, 2023, Chengdu, China.

  • International Conference on Advances in Image Processing (ICAIP), November 17-19, 2023, Beijing, China.

  • International Conference on Sensors, Signal and Image Processing (SSIP), October 27-29, 2023, Nanjing, China.

  • International Symposium on Signal Processing Systems (SSPS), March 24-26, 2023, Guangzhou, China.

  • Asia Conference on Machine Learning, Algorithms, Modeling and Data Analysis (MLAMDA), December 8-10, 2023, Xiamen, China.

  • International Workshop on Computer Vision and Deep Learning, October 19-21, 2022, Dijon, France.

  • International Conference on Computing and Pattern Recognition (ICCPR), November 17-19, 2022, Beijing, China. 

  • International Conference on Algorithms, Computing and Artificial Intelligence (ACAI), December 23 - 25, 2022, Sanya China.

  • International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR), September 23-25, 2022, Xiamen, China.

  • International Conference on Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (MLNLP), December 23-25, 2022, Sanya, China.

  • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), April 25-27, 2022, Virtual. 

  • International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Applications (ICBEA), May 13-15, Hangzhou, China.

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), December 10-12,  2022, Virtual.

  • International Conference on Computing and Artificial Intelligence (ICCAI), March 18-21, 2022, Tianjin, China.

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), August 19-21, 2022, Suzhou, China.

  • International Conference on Computer Graphics and Digital Image Processing (CGDIP),  July 8-10, 2022, Shanghai, China.

  • International Conference on Advances in Image Processing (ICAIP), November 16-18, 2022, Zhenjiang, China

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), August 20-22, 2021, Suzhou, China.

  • International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP), February 8-10, 2021, Vienna, Austria. 

  • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), April 26-28, 2021, Virtual. 

  • International Conference on Mechanics and Mechatronics Research (ICMMR), June 3-5, 2021, Berkeley, USA.

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), December 18-20,  2021, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

  • International Conference on Information Processing and Control Engineering (ICIPCE), June 3-5, 2021, Berkeley, USA.

  • International Conference on Computing and Artificial Intelligence (ICCAI), April 23-26, 2021, Tianjin, China.

  • International Conference on Computing and Pattern Recognition (ICCPR), October 15-17, 2021, Shanghai, China. 

  • International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR), September 17-19, 2021, Xiamen, China.

  • International Conference on Advances in Image Processing (ICAIP), November 12-14, 2021, Chengdu, China

  • International Conference ICT Innovations 2021, September 27-28, 2021, Virtual.

  • International Conference on Mechanics and Mechatronics Research (ICMMR), June 27-29, 2020, Berkeley, USA.

  • International Conference on Information Processing and Control Engineering (ICIPCE), June 27-29, 2020, Berkeley, USA.

  • International Conference on Digital Image Processing and Vision (ICDIPV), May 30-31, 2020, Vancouver, Canada.

  • International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications (VISAPP), February 27-29, 2020, Valletta, Malta.

  • International Conference on Sensors, Signal and Image Processing (SSIP), October 15-17, 2021, Nanjing, China.

  • International Conference on Big Data Analytics, Data Mining and Computational Intelligence (BIGDACI), July 20-23, 2021, Virtual.

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), December 9-11,  2020, Virtual.

  • International Conference on Big Data Analytics, Data Mining and Computational Intelligence (BIGDACI), July 21-25, 2020, Zagreb, Croatia. 

  • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), May 5-7, 2020, Virtual. 

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), August 21-23, 2020, Suzhou, China.

  • International Conference on Biometric Engineering and Application (ICBEA), May 22-24, 2020, Xi'an, China.

  • International Conference on Big Data Analytics, Data Mining and Computational Intelligence (BIGDACI), July 16-18, 2019, Porto, Portugal. 

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), August 27-29,  2019, Vancouver, Canada.

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), August 13-15, 2019, Chengdu, China.

  • International Conference on Robot Systems and Applications (ICRSA), August 4-7, 2019, Moscow, Russia. 

  • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), May 3-5, 2019, Heraklion, Greece. 

  • International Conference on Information Processing and Control Engineering (ICIPCE), August 4-7, 2019, Moscow, Russia. 

  • International Conference on Robot Systems and Applications (ICRSA), July 27-29, 2018, Shanghai, China.  

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), August 27-29,  2018, Las Vegas, USA.

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), August 22-24, 2018, Seoul, South Korea.

  • International Conference on Biometric Engineering and Application (ICBEA), May 16-18, 2018, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

  • International Conference ICT Innovations 2018, September 17-19, 2018, Ohrid, Macedonia.

  • International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications (SIGMAP), July 24-26, 2017, Madrid, Spain. 

  • International Conference on Biometric Engineering and Application (ICBEA), April 21-23, 2017, Hong Kong.

  • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), September 22-24, 2017, Osaka, Japan.

  • International Conference on Biomedical Signal and Image Processing (ICBIP), August 23-25, 2017, Kitakyushu, Japan.

  • International Conference ICT Innovations 2017, September 18-23, 2017, Ohrid, Macedonia.

  • IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA), February 29-March 2, 2016, Sendai, Japan.

  • SOFA 2016: Special Session on Soft Computing & Fuzzy Logic in Biometrics, August 24-27, 2016, Arad, Romania.

  • 1st International Conference on Advances in Signal, Image and Video Processing (SIGNAL), June 26 - 30, 2016, Lisbon, Portugal.

  • 4th Symposium on Data Mining Applications (SDMA), March 30, 2016, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

  • The Eighth International Conference on Advanced Cognitive Technologies and Applications (COGNITIVE), March 20 - 24, 2016, Rome, Italy.

  • International Conference on Big Data Analytics, Data Mining and Computational Intelligence (BIGDACI), July 2-4, 2016, Madeira, Portugal.

  • International Conference on Biometrics (ICB), May 19-22, 2015, Phuket, Thailand.

  • IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA), March 23-25, 2015, Hong Kong.

  • European Conference on Data Mining (ECDM), July 22-24, 2015, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. 

  • International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications (SIGMAP), July 20-22, 2015, Colmar, France. 

  • International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Agents (ICISA), July 22-24, 2015, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Portugal. 

  • The Seventh International Conference on Advanced Cognitive Technologies and Applications (COGNITIVE), March 22 - 27, 2015, Nice, France.

  • 7th International Conference ICT Innovations 2015, October 1-4, 2015, Ohrid, Macedonia.

  • International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), September 29 - October 2, 2014, Clearwater, Florida, USA. 

  • International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR), August 24-28, 2014, Stockholm, Sweden.

  • International Symposium on Biometrics and  Security Technologies (ISBAST), 26-27, August 2014, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

  • 11th International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications (SIGMAP), August 28-30, 2014, Venna, Austria.

  • European Conference on Data Mining (ECDM), July 15-17, 2014, Lisbon, Portugal.

  • International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Agents (ICISA), July 15-17, 2014, Lisbon, Portugal. 

  • 6th International Conference on Advanced Cognitive Technologies and Applications (COGNITIVE), May 25-29, 2014, Venice, Italy.

  • 3rd International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), September 24-27, 2014, Delhi, India.

  • 6th International Conference ICT Innovations 2014, September 9-12, 2014, Ohrid, Macedonia.

  • IEEE International Conference on Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS), September 29 - October 2, 2013, Washington DC, USA.

  • 2nd International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), August 22-25, 2013, Maysore, India.

  • International Workshop on Intelligent Pattern Recognition and Applications (WIPRA), July 19, 2013, New York, USA.

  • 10th International Conference on Signal Processing and Multimedia Applications (SIGMAP), July 29-31, 2013, Reykjavik, Iceland. 

  • 5th International Conference on Advanced Cognitive Technologies and Applications (COGNITIVE), May 27-June 1, 2013, Valencia, Spain.

  • IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Biometrics and Identity Management (CIBIM), April 15-19, 2013, Singapore, Singapore.

  • 5th International Conference ICT Innovations, September 12-15, 2013, Ohrid, Macedonia.

  • European Conference on Data Mining (ECDM), July 22-24, 2013, Prague, Czech Republic.

  • International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Agents (ICISA), July 22-24, 2013, Prague, Czech Republic.

  • European Conference on Data Mining (ECDM), July 21-23, 2012, Lisbon, Portugal.

  • International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Agents (ICISA), July 21-23, 2012, Lisbon, Portugal.

Reviewer

• • Journals

    • IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI)  

    • IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (TC)

    • IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS)

    • IEEE Transactions on Multimedia (TMM)

    • IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (TAI)

    • IEEE Transactions on Big Data (TBD)

    • IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (TIP)

    • IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (TII)

    • IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS)

    • IEEE Internet of Things Journal (ITJ)

    • IEEE Access

    • IEEE Multimedia Magazine

    • ACM Computing Surveys

    • Digital Threats: Research and Practice, ACM

    • Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, ACM

    • Pattern Recognition (PR), Elsevier 

    • Pattern Recognition Letter (PRL), Elsevier

    • Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, Elsevier 

    • Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), Elsevier 

    • Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, Elsevier 

    • Expert Systems with Applications, Elsevier

    • Computer & Security, Elsevier

    • Sensors and Actuators A: Physical, Elsevier

    • Knowledge-Based Systems, Elsevier

    • Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Elsevier

    • Future Generation Computer Systems, Elsevier

    • Biomedical Signal Processing & Control, Elsevier

    • Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal, Elsevier

    • Computers and Electrical Engineering, Elsevier

    • Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Elsevier  

    • Multimedia Tools and Applications, Springer

    • Pattern Analysis and Applications, Springer

    • Signal, Image and Video Processing (SIVP), Springer

    • Multimedia Systems, Springer 

    • Complex & Intelligent Systems (CAIS), Springer

    • International Journal of Biometrics (IJB)

    • SPIE Journal of Electronic Imaging (JEI)

    • IET Biometrics (IETB)

    • IET Image Processing (IETIP)

    • IET Computer Vision (IETCV)

    • IET Electronic Letters 

    • IET Science, Measurement & Technology 

    • IET Circuits, Devices & Systems 

    • Transactions in GIS, Wiley

    • British Journal of Applied Science & Technology

    • British Journal of Mathematics & Computer Science

    • Sensors, MDPI

    • Symmetry, MDPI

    • Applied Science, MDPI

    • Entropy, MDPI

    • Complexity, Hindawi

    • International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics, Inderscience

    • Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, Hindawi

    • Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal, ASTES

    • Journal of Applied Science and Engineering

    • Big Data Mining and Analytics

    • B&H Electrical Engineering

    • Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research

• • International Conferences

    • IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2023

    • IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) 2020, 2021, 2023

    • International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP), 2022, 2023

    • International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) 2020

    • IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), 2020

    • International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS) 2020

    • IEEE International Symposium on Signal Processing and Information Technology (ISSPIT), 2020

    • IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA) 2019

    • 1st Workshop on Computer Vision for Global Challenges @ CVPR 2019

    • International Conference on Vision, Image and Signal Processing (ICVISP), 2017, 2018, 2019

    • International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) 2018

    • International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) 2012

    • IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI) 2013

    • IEEE 2nd International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI) 2013

    • International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods (ICPRAM) 2012

    • European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD) 2012

    • International Conference on Articulated Motion and Deformable Objects (AMDO) 2012

    • International Conference on Computing and Convergence Technology (ICCCT) 2012

    • International Conference on Intelligent Computing (ICIC) 2012

    • IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE) 2012

    • IEEE/IAPR International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB) 2011

    • IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) 2011

    • IEEE Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2011

    • IEEE International Conference on Biometrics: Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS) 2010

    • IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP) 2010

    • IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Biometrics Council Workshop on Biometrics (CVPRW) 2010

    • IEEE Workshop on Biometric Measurements and Systems for Security and Medical Applications (BioMS) 2010 

    • International Conference on Articulated Motion and Deformable Objects (AMDO) 2010

    • International Conference on Biometrics (ICB) 2013

    • IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Cybernetics (ICMLC) 2012

    • IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Biometrics Council Workshop on Biometrics (CVPRW) 2012