• PROTEA: Securing Robot Task Planning and Execution. Zainab Altaweel, Mohaiminul Al Nahian, Jake Juettner, Adnan Siraj Rakin, Shiqi Zhang. IROS 2026 (accepted). [Project webpage]

• MuTRAP: Multi-trigger Trojans Attacking Robot Task Planning Systems. Mohaiminul Al Nahian*, Zainab Altaweel*, David Reitano, Sabbir Ahmed, Shiqi Zhang, Adnan Siraj Rakin. IROS 2026 (accepted). *Equal contribution. [Project webpage]

• Robot Planning and Situation Handling with Active Perception. Austine Oloo, Zainab Altaweel, Yohei Hayamizu, Peiqi Liu, Yan Ding, Saeid Amiri, Hao Yang, Andy Kaminski, Chad Esselink, Chris Paxton, Xiaohan Zhang, Shiqi Zhang. IROS 2026. [Project webpage]

• From Woofs to Words: Towards Intelligent Robotic Guide Dogs with Verbal Communication. Yohei Hayamizu*, David DeFazio*, Hrudayangam Mehta*, Zainab Altaweel, Jacqueline Choe, Chao Lin, Jake Juettner, Furui Xiao, Jeremy Blackburn, Shiqi Zhang. The Fortieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2026. [AAAI Official] [Project webpage]

• 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. [Sage Official] [Project webpage]

• 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.

• 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. AAAI 2025 Workshop on Planning in the Era of LLMs (LM4Plan).

• 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), 13(1), 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).

• 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 the Prosthetics and Orthotics Department/ College of Engineering.

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

Software developer

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

Software developer

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

Teaching assistant at the Computer Engineering Department.

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

Network engineer

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

Ph.D. in Computer Science.

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

      Master of Science in Computer Engineering

• 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.

• Program Committee Member, AAAI 2026 (AISI track) — reviewed 3 papers

• Reviewer, CoRL 2026 — reviewed 3 papers

• Reviewer, ICRA 2026 — reviewed 7 papers

In my free time, I like to make little art as a way to create something beautiful. If you’d like to see my art, click here :)