About me!
I am a lecturer at the Faculty of Science & Technology, University of Canberra (UC). Before joining UC, I worked as a senior research fellow at the School of Systems and Computing in the University of New South Wales, Canberra (2020-2023). I serve as an associate editor at the IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence. My research interests include swarm robotics, multi-agent systems, reinforcement learning (RL), and human-machine interaction.
I have solid expertise in combining human and machine intelligence by studying interaction schemes that allow humans to teach machines and to effectively team up with them in the field. Particularly, my research has focused on RL agents and how they can learn to perform tasks by utilising the expertise of subject matter experts rather than by learning completely on their own via trial and error. I focus on swarm robotics as an application domain when developing and evaluating techniques for humans to teach RL agents.
My interest in human-machine interaction and swarm robotics started during my PhD which I received from UNSW- Canberra in 2020. My PhD focused on the realisation of effective human-swarm teams where I investigated both aspects of Human Factors and swarm algorithms that affect team performance. Prior to that, I got my master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Computer Engineering from Cairo University in 2011 and 2015. My master’s research was about Arabic text diacritisation where I used Natural Language Processing (NLP) to enable the automatic restoration of the diacritics which is an essential pre-processing task for many Arabic NLP applications.
What's up?
[Career Development] March 2024: I have completed the Supervising Doctoral Studies training by University of Canberra
[Research] March 2024: Our paper A. J. Hepworth, A. Hussein, D. J. Reid, H. A. Abbass "Contextually aware intelligent control agents for heterogeneous swarms" has been accepted for publication in Swarm Intelligence. Paper available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11721-024-00235-w
[Teaching] February-April 2024: I'm developing new materials for the Game Programming Technique subjects which I'm concurrently teaching this semester.
[Career Development] December 2023: I have been awarded Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) in recognition of attainment against the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching & learning in higher education.
I've started a new job as a Lecturer in AI & Machine Learning at the University of Canberra
[Research] 5 - 6 Dec 2023: I attended the Defence Human Sciences Symposium (DHSS) in Brisbane where I presented our accepted abstract on "Swarm Metaverse for Human-Machine Education and Teaming"
[Teaching] 1 Dec 2023: I received my certificate for completing the Foundations of University Learning and Teaching (FULT) program after successfully completing all its assessment tasks.
[Research] 28 Nov - 1 Dec 2023: I attended the AJCAI conference in Brisbane where I presented our two accepted papers detailed below.
[Service & engagement] 23 Nov 2023: I attended the CADRE-OCE Workshop organised by NSW Smart Sensing Network where I pitched our Swarm Metaverse and its potential in CBRN.
[Service & engagement] 22 Nov 2023: I chaired the AI in Defence session at the inaugural AI Symposium organised by UNSW AI institute in Sydney.
[Teaching] October 2023: Undergraduate Chief of Defence Force student Muhammad Talha has successfully completed his S2 Y3 research project, under my supervision, scoring HD
[Research] 15 Sept 2023: Our paper G. Garrison, H. A. Abbass, and A. Hussein "Interpretation of Neural Network Players for a Generalized Divide the Dollar Game Using SHAP Values" has been accepted for publication in SSCI 2023. [Available here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10371984]
[Research] 15 Sept 2023: Our paper M. Hussein, M. Keshk, and A. Hussein "Non-Stationarity Detection in Model-Free Reinforcement Learning via Value Function Monitoring" has been accepted for publication in AJCAI 2023 - [Acceptance rate 39%] [Available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-99-8391-9_28 ].
[Research] 15 Sept 2023: Our paper M. Talha, A. Hussein , and M. Hossny "LiDAR Inpainting of UAV based 3D Point Cloud Using Supervised Learning " has been accepted for publication in AJCAI 2023 - [Acceptance rate 39%] [Available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-99-8388-9_17 ].
[Service & engagement] August 2023: I organised the “Strategy Evolution in Social Dilemma Games” seminar in collaboration with IEEE CIS Canberra
[Service & engagement] August 2023: I'm a UNSW Canberra representative for the AI Symposium organised by the UNSW.AI Institute
[Service & engagement] August 2023: I have been appointed as the Research Communications Coordinator at the School of Systems and Computing at UNSW Canberra.
[Teaching] Semester 2-2023: I'm developing the lab material and am teaching lab & lectures for Computer Games ZEIT1110.
[Teaching] July 2023: Undergraduate Chief of Defence Force students Muhammad Talha and Muhammad Khan have successfully completed their S1 Y3 research projects under my supervision as the primary supervisor, both scoring HD
[Career Development] July 2023: I attended the Adaptive Leadership Masterclass by UNSW
[Research] June 2023: Our team is a finalist in the the ENAIRE Air Traffic Management technological challenges contest 2023
[Career Development] June 2023: I attended the "Mental Health First Aid" course at UNSW Canberra. I'm now a certified Mental Health First Aider.
[Research] 19 May 2023: Our work "Swarm Metaverse for Multi-Level Autonomy Using Digital Twins" has been published in Sensors.
[Research] 6 May 2023: Dr. Adam J Hepworth has been granted his PhD under my supervision as a joint supervisor, with Prof Hussein Abbass as the main supervisor and Dr. Darryn Reid as a co-supervisor.
[Service & engagement] Feb-Oct 2023: Member of the review panel for honour's students at the School of Engineering & IT.
[Career Development] 11 Feb 2023: I completed the "Recognise and Respond: Suicide Prevention for Everyday Life" training provided by the Black Dog Institute
[Service & engagement] Feb-June 2023: Lead organiser of the IEEE IJCNN special session on "Learning in swarm and multi-robot systems" (2023). Call for papers can be found here: https://2023.ijcnn.org/paper-submission/special-sessions#session-4-22
[Service & engagement] Jan 2023: I am appointed as an Associate Editor and a member of the Paper Screening Committee at the IEEE Transaction on Artificial Intelligence
[Research] 28 Nov 2022: We purchased a new set of 8 Jetbot ROS robots for the Distributed Intelligence group at UNSW Canberra
[Career Development] 23 Nov 2022: I attended the Industry Funding Scheme Workshop at UNSW Canberra
[Service & engagement] 22 Nov 2022: I have given a Tutorial session on "Human Teachable Reinforcement Learning" at ICONIP 2022. Tutorial page is here: https://sites.google.com/view/iconip2022tutorial/home
[Teaching] Oct 2022: Honours student Bridget Free and 4th year Engineering student Rana Riaz completed their thesis projects successfully
[Research] 20 Oct 2022: Our work "Swarm Analytics: Designing Information Markers to Characterise Swarm Systems in Shepherding Contexts " has been accepted for publication in the journal of Adaptive Behavior
[Research] 17 Sept 2022: Our work "Autonomous UAV Navigation in Wilderness Search-and-Rescue Operations Using Deep Reinforcement Learning " has been accepted for publication in the Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AJCAI 2022)
[Service & engagement] Aug-Dec 2022: Member of the HDR review panels for three students at the School of Engineering & IT.
[Research] 8 Aug 2022: A UNSW internal fund of 7500 AUD has been granted to the Distributed Intelligence research group which I lead and have co-founded
[Research] 8 Aug 2022: A UNSW internal fund of 3000 AUD has been granted to the Deep Learning research group which I have co-founded
[Service & engagement] 20-22 July 2022: I attended the Australian Defence Science, Technology and Research (ADSTAR) in Sydney
[Service & engagement] 13-14 Jun 2022: I participated in the Thinking Swarms workshop organised by Trusted Autonomous Systems and UNSW Canberra, held in Queensland
[Recognition & esteem] 8t Jun 2022: I got a scholarship from DAIRNet to represent UNSW as a female in AI at The Australian Defence Science, Technology and Research (ADSTAR) summit 2022
[Career Development] 18 May 2022: I attended the Ripple Effect workshop at UNSW Canberra
[Research] 12-13 May 2022: I presented our paper on "Autonomous Swarm Shepherding Using Curriculum-Based Reinforcement Learning" at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2022)
[Teaching] May 2022: Undergraduate Chief of Defence Force students Christopher Wise and Muhammad Talha have successfully completed their research projects
[Teaching] May 2022: I completed the development and teaching of ZEIT4117 - "Special Topics in Reinforcement Learning" which is the first course on RL at UNSW Canberra
[Service & engagement] 7 Apr - 9 Jun 2022: I have been participating in ten weekly Swarming Discussions organised by Trusted Autonomous Systems and UNSW Canberra
[Teaching] Feb 2022: I'll be a member of the AI Panel for the 2022 year at UNSW Canberra
[Teaching] Dec 2021: I gave a guest lecture on Autonomy & Reinforcement Learning in the “Data Science for Defence Capability" course at UNSW Canberra
[Research] 22 Nov 2021: Our work "A machine education approach to swarm decision-making in best-of-n problems" is now published in Swarm Intelligence journal
[Research] October 2021: I got a $20,000 grant from the Department of Defence and the Office of National Intelligence for the project "Continual Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous shepherding" - Role: Chief Investigator
[Teaching] Oct 2021: 4th year Engineering students David King, Rana Hasan, Bradley Newsland, and Christopher Cox completed their thesis projects successfully
[Teaching] Oct 2021: Undergraduate Chief of Defence Force students Rana Riaz has successfully completed his research project
[Service & engagement] March 2021: Co-orgaised IEEE IROS Workshop on "Cognitive and Social Aspects of Human Multi-Robot Interaction"
[Teaching] Jun 2021: I developed teleoperation system for multi-robot control to be used for supporting the delivery of ZEIT 4115 - Special Topics in AI course
[Teaching] May 2021: Undergraduate Chief of Defence Force students Rana Riaz has successfully completed his research project under my supervision
[Service & engagement] May 2021: I developed a UGV teleoperation system to be used for Exercise Enigma - VECC at UNSW Canberra
[Service & engagement] March 2021: I have been appointed as the manager of the AI lab - UNSW Canberra