Hi, I'm Ali!
I am an AI researcher and PhD student at the University of Waterloo, working on vision–language models for spatio-temporal reasoning in real-world inspection and monitoring systems. My research focuses on interpretable visual understanding, including component-level change detection, 3D scene understanding, and multimodal reasoning. I have hands-on experience designing and deploying production-grade AI systems through collaborations with academic and industry partners. My expertise includes Python and modern ML frameworks (PyTorch, Hugging Face, scikit-learn, OpenCV), with a strong focus on building end-to-end machine learning systems from research to deployment.
Experience
ML Engineer
Kisoji Biotechnology
2025 - Present
AI & ML Researcher (PhD)
CVISS Lab, University of Waterloo
2023 - Present
Education
PhD, Engineering
University of Waterloo
2023 - Present
M.Sc., Engineering
Sharif University of Technology
2019-2022
Technical Skills & Tools
Python
C++
PyTorch
HuggingFace
LangChain
Scikit-learn
OpenCV
FastAPI
Streamlit
Pandas
SQL
AWS
Docker
Nginx
GitHub Actions
Git
Bash
Linux
Experiences
Machine Learning EngineerAug 2025 - Present
Kisoji Biotechnology Inc.
- Architected and deployed an agentic RAG platform enabling natural-language querying over internal documents and structured databases, implementing end-to-end RAG pipelines and intelligent tool routing between document retrieval and NL2SQL, with CLI and Streamlit interfaces deployed on AWS.
- Built an automated PDF image extraction and classification system using embedding-based similarity against reference images, exposed via FastAPI REST API with web UI and CLI support.
- Architected and deployed scalable cloud infrastructure on AWS, configuring VPCs, subnets, Internet Gateways, routing tables, security groups, and IAM roles; containerized multi-service applications using Docker and Docker Compose, served via Nginx reverse proxy, and automated deployments using GitHub Actions CI/CD.
NLP Specialist (RA)Jan 2025 - Aug 2025
Office of Associate Dean, Teaching & Student Experience, University of Waterloo
- Contributed to the development of an automated NLP-based comment classification system for student course evaluations, using Sentence Transformer (all-MiniLM-L6-v2) embeddings and a KNN classifier to identify and filter inappropriate feedback.
- Implemented Python pipelines for data preparation, model training, evaluation, and batch inference.
AI & Machine Learning Researcher (PhD Student) Sep 2023 - Present
CViSS Lab, University of Waterloo
- PhD Research
- Developing a spatio-temporal vision–language system for automated infrastructure inspection, enabling component-level change detection across multi-cycle UAV imagery by reasoning over time with text-conditioned VLMs that produce interpretable natural-language change reports and grounded pixel-level evidence.
- Mitacs Intern | Nav Canada — Jan 2026 -
Present
- Developed a computer vision system to compute Runway Occupancy Time (ROT) by detecting and tracking aircraft in airport video feeds, implementing small-object detection using SAHI combined with object detectors and monitoring runway-entry and exit events to accurately measure aircraft presence during takeoff and landing.
- Mitacs Intern | RBC Royal Bank — Jan 2025 - Apr
2025
- Developed a monocular window measurement system for energy auditors to estimate window dimensions from single images, integrating Grounded SAM for window segmentation, monocular metric depth estimation, and camera-geometry–based 3D projection using known intrinsics to compute accurate width and height. [ GitHub]
- Mitacs Intern | Rogers Communications — Sep 2024
- Dec 2024
- Developed SDG-SAM, a zero-shot instance segmentation pipeline for fine-grained detection of cell tower components in UAV imagery, integrating saliency-based foreground extraction, monocular depth estimation (Depth Anything), open-vocabulary detection (Grounding DINO), and foundation-model segmentation (SAM) to handle complex outdoor scenes with heavy clutter and occlusions. [ GitHub]
Software Developer & Graduate Researcher Sep 2020 - May 2023
INSURER Lab, Sharif University of Technology
- Worked as a developer on Rtx, a C++ and Qt-based simulation software for probabilistic modeling, reliability, and resilience analysis of large-scale infrastructure systems.
- Implemented agent-based models to simulate disaster impacts and interdependent infrastructure behavior.
- Developed modules for assessing community-scale risk and resilience across varying levels of model refinement.
- Contributed to probabilistic simulation workflows for evaluating post-disaster recovery and system performance.
Selected Projects
Intelligent Decision-Making System: Deep Learning-Based Satellite Imagery Analysis for Probabilistic Inference via Bayesian Networks
- Developed a deep learning pipeline for satellite imagery analysis, segmenting building footprints using U-Net and classifying structural damage using ResNet-based feature representations.
- Integrated vision-based damage outputs into a Bayesian Network to enable probabilistic inference of community-level impact and uncertainty-aware decision support.
- Designed a modular, updateable inference pipeline that incorporates new imagery or evidence to refine predictions over time.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy, Engineering 2023 - Present
University of Waterloo
GPA: 99.67/100 (4/4)
Master of Science, Engineering 2019-2022
Sharif University of Technology
GPA: 17.83/20 (3.87/4)
Bachelor of Science, Engineering 2015-2019
Sahand University of Technology
GPA: 19.12/20 (3.96/4)
Honors & Awards
1st Place, 2025 NSF NHERI GSC Data Challenge2025
Awarded for top AI research in natural hazards.
Winner of UW Graduate Scholarship2024
University of Waterloo.
Winner of the National Elites Foundation Award2019
Ranked 1st Among More than 44 Peer B.Sc. Students2019
Sahand University of Technology.
Ranked 49th out of 30,000+ in Nationwide M.Sc. Entrance Exam2019
Ranked 1st, 24th Regional Scientific Olympiad in Civil Engineering2019
Top Undergraduate Student in Department2016 and 2017
Recognized for academic excellence.
Member of the Center of Exceptional Talents2015 - 2019
Sahand University of Technology.
Publications
A Knowledge-Augmented GPT for Efficient Data Collection in Home Energy Audits
