Mahdi Imani

Assistant Professor

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Khoury College of Computer Sciences (by courtesy)

Northeastern University

Profile: Google Scholar

Email: m.imani [AT] northeastern.edu




Short Bio

Mahdi Imani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and an affiliated faculty member in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2019. His research interests include machine learning, reinforcement learning, probabilistic reasoning, and foundational models. Dr. Imani is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the NIH NIBIB Trailblazer Award (2022), the Oracle Research Award (2022), the NSF CISE Career Research Initiation Initiative Award (2020), and the Association of Former Students Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research-Doctoral (2019). He was also recognized as a Best Paper Finalist at the 20th IFAC Symposium on Systems Identification (SYSID, 2024) and the 49th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (2015). He is a Senior IEEE member and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS) and IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. He has received the Outstanding Associate Editor Award from IEEE TNNLS for two consecutive years, 2023 and 2024.

 

Open Positions

I am looking for self-motivated Ph.D. students to join my group in Fall 2025. The areas of interest include machine learning, learning/decision theory, reinforcement learning, and Bayesian statistics. All candidates are expected to have excellent programming skills. Prospective students may have background in electrical and computer engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, or statistics. If you are interested, please email me a copy of your CV and transcripts at m.imani [AT] northeastern.edu. Please use “Ph.D. Application” as the subject of your email.

 

Highlights

  • Congratulations to Mohammad Alali on his paper “Kernel-Based Particle Filtering for Scalable Inference in Partially Observed Boolean Dynamical Systems” being selected as a Finalist Paper Award at the 20th IFAC Symposium on Systems Identification (SYSID 2024) [April 2023]. [Link]
  • We received one-year collaborative research award from United State Military Academy, WestPoint [July 2024].
  • We received a three-year Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) award with collaboration with multiple Universities (PSU, USC, Kennesaw State, GWU) and industrial partner (Design Interactive, Inc.) [July 2024].
  • We received a three-year Army Research Office award [July 2024].
  • Our paper titled “Bayesian Optimization for Gaussian Process Modulated Inhomogeneous Poisson Process” is accepted at the 2024  International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) [Jan 2024].
  • Two papers accepted at 2024 American Control Conference (ACC) with my students, Amirhossein Ravari, and Armita KazemiNajafabadi: “Implicit Human Perception Learning in Complex and Unknown Environments”, “Optimal Detection for Bayesian Attack Graphs under Uncertainty in Monitoring and Reimaging” [Jan 2024].
  • Our paper titled “Optimal Inference of Hidden Markov Models Through Expert-Acquired Data” is accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence [Jan 2024].
  • We received a four-year Office of Naval Research award [Oct 2023].
  • We received a one-year United State Military Academy award [Oct 2023].
  • We received a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) award [Sep 2023].
  • Honored to be selected as Outstanding Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks Learning Systems (TNNLS) [Sep 2023].
  • I have joint the IEEE CIS Bioinformatics and Bioengineering Technical Committee [August 2023].
  • Congratulations to Armita KazemiNajafabadi on her paper “Optimal monitoring and attack detection of networks modeled by Bayesian attack graphs” accepted in the Cybersecurity journal [April 2023].
  • Our paper titled “A Bayesian optimization framework for finding local optima in expensive multi-modal functions” is accepted at the 26th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) [July 2023].
  • Congratulations to Mohammad Alali on his paper “Reinforcement Learning Data Acquisition for Causal Inference of Regulatory Networks” being selected as a finalist for the Best Student Paper Award at the 2023 American Control Conference (ACC) [April 2023].
  • Our paper titled “Optimal Recursive Expert-Enabled Inference in Regulatory Networks” is accepted for publication in the IEEE Control Systems Letters [Dec 2022].
  • I gave an invited talk on AI/ML applications in healthcare at Oracle’s Health and AI Services  [August 2022].
  • We received a three-year National Institute of Health (NIH) NIBIB Trailblazer award [June 2022].
  • I have joined the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Neural Network Learning Systems [Jan 2022].
  • I have joined the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology [Sep 2021].
  • We received a four-year Army Research Office award [July 2021].
  • I elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior member [February 2021].
  • I organized a half-day workshop titled “Scalable, Reliable and Online Bayesian Learning” in IEEE 16th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) [August 2020].
  • I organized a half-day workshop titled “Machine Learning for Scalable, Reliable and Online Design and Decision Making” in IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications (CCTA) [August 2020].
  • We received a two-year National Science Foundation (NSF) award [July 2020].

Honors and Awards

  • Best Paper Finalist Award, 20th IFAC Symposium on Systems Identification (SYSID), 2024.
  • Outstanding Associate Editor Award, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, 2023.
  • Best Paper Finalist Award, IEEE American Control Conference, 2023.
  • NIH NIBIB Trailblazer award, 2022
  • Elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior member, February 2021.
  • NSF CISE Career Research Initiation Initiative award, 2020
  • IBM Research Almaden Distinguished Speaker, San Jose, CA, November 2019.
  • Recipient of the Association of Former Students Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research-Doctoral, Texas A&M University, 2019.
  • Finalist nominee for the Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Texas A&M University, 2018.
  • Recipient of the Best PhD Student Award, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, 2015.
  • Recipient of the Best Paper Finalist Award, the 49th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, 2015.