• Binghamton University - Binghamton, NY, USA (Aug. 2023 - Present)
  Graduate Teaching Assistant at the School of Computing.

• University of Kerbala – Karbala, Iraq (May. 2017 – Aug. 2018), (Aug. 2020– Aug. 2023)

Assistant Lecturer at Prosthetics and Orthotics Department/ College of Engineering.

Tutor and researcher at the Open Source Technology Lab.

• Kubtec Medical Imaging – Stratford, CT, US (Online) (Sep. 2020 – June 2023)

• Integrating new hardware parts into the imaging software including X-ray sources and detectors.

• Developing new features for the imaging software such as retrieving images from PACS server and licensing some advanced features.

• Developing new projects such as a windows application to test the hardware components of the system.

•  Solving customer issues.

• Documenting development process for new projects including User needs, Software Requirement Specifications (SRS), Software Design Specification (SDS), and Test Plans.

Technologies used: C#, SQLite, SQL, WPF, Keygen Licensing API, Orthanc PACS server, MWL emulator, rzdcx toolkit, and dcmtk toolkit.

Kubtec Medical Imaging – Stratford, CT, US (Internship) (Aug. 2019- May 2020)

• Worked on Reviewing and analyzing system specifications and testing imaging software.

• Conducted research to reduce speech signal noise and improve voice recognition feature.

• Developed effective test plans for the imaging software, executed them, and analyzed the results, specifically for the voice commands feature.

• Troubleshoot customer issues and worked on customization requests.

Technologies used: C#, WPF, Python, SQL, SQLite, Orthanc PACS server.

Al-Nahrain University – Baghdad, Iraq (Oct. 2014 – May 2017)

• Teaching assistant at Computer Engineering Department laboratories including electrical and electronic circuits, logic circuit design, computer network, software engineering, and web design laboratories.

• Network administrator at the College of Engineering to provide Internet service for the campus, including hardware installation and maintenance, devices configuration, troubleshooting, and network service monitoring.

• Developer of the E-Library for the College of Engineering.

• Administrative member of the alumni office at the College of Engineering.  

NetMax Company – Baghdad, Iraq (Internship) (Sep. 2014 – Oct. 2014)

• Network engineer worked on devices configuration, troubleshooting, and network service monitoring.

• Binghamton University – Binghamton, NY, USA (Started: Aug. 2023)

Ph.D. in Computer Science.

Current GPA: 4.0/4.0.

Research focus: 

• Exploring vulnerabilities and security concerns in Large Language Models (LLMs) in LLM-based task planning frameworks. Addressing the challenges of generating harmful plans.

• Developing a defense mechanism to ensure the safety of task plan execution for robots.

• University of Bridgeport –Bridgeport, CT, USA, 2020                                  

      Master of Science in Computer Engineering, (GPA: 3.97/4).

Awarded Academic Achievement in Computer Engineering.                          

Thesis Title: Speech Signal Enhancement Based on Sequence to Sequence Model with a Novel Attention Mechanism, Supervised by Prof. Ausif Mahmood.

In this thesis, a new deep-learning model was proposed and implemented to enhance speech signals and reduce noise. The model was built and trained using Python and Keras.

• Drexel University – Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2018                                          

Six Weeks Intensive Pre academic English Language Course.

• Al-Nahrain University – Baghdad, Iraq, 2014

        Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering.

• LLM-GROP: Visually Grounded Robot Task and Motion Planning with Large Language Models

Xiaohan Zhang*, Yan Ding*, Yohei Hayamizu*, Zainab Altaweel*, Yifeng Zhu, Yuke Zhu, Peter Stone, Chris Paxton, Shiqi Zhang
International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2025 [Accepted for publication]

• Robo-Troj: Attacking LLM-Based Task Planners

Mohaiminul Al Nahian, Zainab Altaweel, David Reitano, Sabbir Ahmed, Shiqi Zhang, Adnan Siraj Rakin

RSS 2025 Workshop on Reliable Robotics: Safety and Security in the Face of Generative AI, June, 2025.

• DKPrompt: Domain Knowledge Prompting Vision-Language Models for Open-World Planning

Xiaohan Zhang, Zainab Altaweel*, Yohei Hayamizu*, Yan Ding, Saeid Amiri, Hao Yang, Andy Kaminski, Chad Esselink, Shiqi Zhang
The AAAI 2025 Workshop on Planning in the Era of LLMs (LM4Plan), March 2025.

• Using Deep Neural Networks in Classifying Electromyography Signals for Hand Gestures

Ahmed M Al-Khazzar, Zainab Altaweel, Jabbar S Hussain 

IAES International Journal of Artificial Intelligence (IJ-AI), Vol. 13, No. 1, March 2024.

• Smart Parking for Disabled Parking Improvement Using RFID and Database Authentication 

Zainab Al Taweel, Lavanya Challagundla, Alexander Pagan, Abdel-shakour Abuzneid 

2020 IEEE 6th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT), June 2020.

• Poster Presentation "Attacking LLM-based Robot Intelligence for Long-horizon Tasks"

Zainab Altaweel, Mohaiminul Al Nahian, Adnan Siraj Rakin, Shiqi Zhang. Poster Presentation at:

• Poster Presentation “Safety First: a Dataset of Harmful Task Plans for Robots”

Mohaiminul Al Nahian, Zainab Altaweel, David Reitano, Sabbir Ahmed, Shiqi Zhang, Adnan Siraj Rakin. Poster Presentation at: RSS 2025 Workshop on Reliable Robotics: Safety and Security in the Face of Generative AI; June 22, 2025; Los Angeles, CA, USA.

• Poster presentation “Network Virtualization, Technologies and Challenges”

O. Abuzaghleh, C. A. Konate, J. Oiseomaoje, M. Alyas, S. Ivan, Z. Altaweel. Network Virtualization Technologies and Challenges. Poster Presentation at: 2019 ASEE Zone I Conference & Workshop; April 15, 2019; Niagara Falls, NY, USA. 

• Awarded the Graduate School Travel Grant to attend the Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Conference 2025 and present my paper entitled "Attacking LLM-based Robot Intelligence for Long-horizon Tasks" at RSS 2025 Workshop on Reliable Robotics: Safety and Security in the Face of Generative AI. 

• The award was received to support travel and participation at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2025), including presenting my paper in the Workshop on Datasets and Evaluators of AI Safety entitled "Safety First: a Dataset of Harmful Task Plans for Robots."

• Member of the Connecticut Delta Chapter of the Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society. (May 2020)

• Fulbright Foreign Student Program scholar 2018-2020. (Jul. 2018)

• Program Committee Member, AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AI for Social Impact (AISI) Track, 2026.
  Served on the Program Committee for the AI for Social Impact (AISI) track, reviewing and evaluating three submitted research papers.

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