My research is centered on the general theme of responsible computing for society. It is embedded in three disciplines; economics, computer science and game studies. The tools I use include econometric and statistical modeling, data science and programming, machine learning and game design. I work in the areas of natural resources and sustainability, urban planning, digital news media and education, ordered by the level of engagement. I think of methods and frameworks for how computing and digital technology can be applied to these areas in a responsible way that is mindful of problems of centralization, privacy, algorithmic bias, and addiction.
I also spend time on traditional Islamic studies and Arabic studies, philosophy, economic history and ethics.
I am generally looking for students and collaborators who want to engage with my research. I am able to pay a small minority of my research students either through funded projects or paid internships while many students work without pay towards publications, project proposals and startup ideas. If you are interested, you may contact me with a letter stating your purpose and a brief resume highlighting your past experience with research and academics at g.saifa@jmi.ac.in.
Spatial Autocorrelation in Groundwater Levels
Saif Ali, Gaurav Arora (Under review at Springer volume, Series "Studies in Systems, Decision, and Control," indexed in Scopus)
Dry Wells: A Missing Data Conundrum for Groundwater Management
Saif Ali, Gaurav Arora
Groundwater Level Dynamics and Agricultural Land-use Change in the Gangetic Basin
Saif Ali, Gaurav Arora
Smoke Signals: The Exhaust-ing nature of Delhi’s Rush Hour
Kanishka Kacker, Ridhima Gupta, Saif Ali
Route-based Geocoding of Traffic Congestion-Related Social Media Texts on a Complex Network
Mohammad Faraz Siddiqui, Mohammad Faiz, Adeeba Haroon, Saif Ali (Under review at the International Journal for Geographical Information Science)
Spatial Prediction of Groundwater Levels using Geostatistical Semi-Supervised Machine Learning
Saif Ali, Mohammad Nauman Shahid, Turab Zaidi, Gaurav Arora
Nationwide assessment of water conservation structure impacts on community resilience using geospatial data analysis. Evaluating the impact of artificial lakes, ponds and tanks on local livelihoods across India. Feb 2024 onwards. PI: Dr. Gaurav Arora, funded by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India.
Spatial Prediction and Characterization of Groundwater Level Dynamics using Geostatistics and Machine Learning. PI: Dr. Mohd. Zeeshan Ansari, Co-PI: Dr. Saif Ali. (Under review at the National Informatics Center for Environment and Sustainability, ISRO)
The causes and consequences of traffic congestion in India, Kanishka Kacker (PI), Ridhimi Gupta (Co-PI), Saif Ali (Co-PI), funded by EfD Initiative.
Teaching Phonological Awareness, Nandini Chaterjee Singh (PI), Saif Ali (Co-PI), funded by UNESCO MGIEP and hosted by Manav Rachna International University.
Mohammad Faraz Siddiqui
Area(s) of Specialization: Spatial information science, social media analysis.
Application domain: Urban transport.
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Mohammad Faiz
Area(s) of Specialization: Graph and network analysis, social media analysis.
Application domain: Urban transport.
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Fahad-ur Rehman
Area(s) of Specialization: Spatial data, GIS and remote sensing
Application Domain: Water resources and sustainability
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Mohammad Nauman Shahid
Area(s) of Specialization: Machine learning, geostatistics
Application Domain: Water resources and sustainability
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Turab Zaidi
Area(s) of Specialization: Machine learning, NLP
Application Domain: Computational social science, computing and AI for journalism
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Budhil Nigam
Area(s) of Specialization: Web development
Application Domain: Geo-spatial data for the web
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Muhammad Ashrah
(Academic Assistant)
Area(s) of Specialization: NLP, Fake news detection, misinformation
Application Domain: Journalism, algorithmic bias and ethics in AI
Program: B.Tech, Computer Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia
Robin Sharma
Area(s) of Specialization: Games and mathematics education
Application domain: Mathematics Education
Program: M.Sc. Mathematics Education, Cluster Innovation Center, Delhi University and AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia
Currently PhD Candidate at the Technology, Learning, & Cognition Lab, McGill University
Divya Gautam
Area(s) of Specialization: Games and mathematics education
Application domain: Mathematics Education
Program: M.Sc. Mathematics Education, Cluster Innovation Center, Delhi University and AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia
Currently PhD Scholar at IIT Gandhinagar
Akash Saini
Area(s) of Specialization: Games and mathematics education
Application domain: Mathematics Education
Program: M.Sc. Mathematics Education, Cluster Innovation Center, Delhi University and AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia
Currently PhD Candidate at the Univeristy of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Abdul Hannan, Madiha Rais, Fahad Tausif
Area(s) of Specialization: Financial analytics
Application domain: Digital news and financial markets.
Program: M.Sc., Banking and Financial Analytics, Jamia Millia Islamia
Aastha Sarraf
Area(s) of Specialization: Games and science education
Application domain: Science and Mathematics Education
Program: M.Sc. Mathematics Education, Cluster Innovation Center, Delhi University and AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia
Currently PhD Scholar at iDCNLab, University of Melbourne
Nidhi Seth
Area(s) of Specialization: Computational Fluid Dynamics for Ecology and Water Science
Application Domain: Nature-based solutions for wastewater treatment
Program: PhD, Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, India