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

I am 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. My research focuses on probabilistic AI, foundation models, and decision-making under uncertainty, with emphasis on reasoning, reinforcement learning, and human–AI and multi-agent teaming. I have authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications and currently lead a group of nine Ph.D. students and one postdoctoral researcher. My contributions have earned recognition through several prestigious awards, including the NIH NIBIB Trailblazer Award (2022), the Oracle Research Award (2022), the NSF CISE CRII Award (2020), and the Distinguished Graduate Student Award from Texas A&M University (2019). I have also been a Best Paper Finalist at the 2023 and 2025 American Control Conference (ACC), the 20th IFAC Symposium on Systems Identification (2024), and the 49th Asilomar Conference (2015). I currently serve as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS) and the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, and I am on the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Automation and Intelligence. I received the Outstanding Associate Editor Award from IEEE TNNLS in both 2023 and 2024.

 

Open Positions

I am looking for self-motivated Ph.D. students to join my group in Fall 2025. Research areas of interest include machine learning, reinforcement learning, decision theory, and Bayesian statistics. Strong programming skills are expected. Applicants are typically from backgrounds such as electrical and computer engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, or statistics. If interested, please email your CV and transcripts to m.imani [AT] northeastern.edu with the subject line “Ph.D. Application.”

 

Highlights

  • Dr. Mohammad Alali successfully defended his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University. His dissertation title is “Bayesian Inference for Uncertainty-Aware Modeling and Decision Planning,” [July 2025]
  • Congratulations to Armita KazemiNajafabadi on her paper acceptance at the 21st IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), titled “Game-Theoretic Defense Policy for Network Security Against Intelligent Adversary.”
  • Congratulations to Yuxin Lin on her paper acceptance at the 2025 Reinforcement Learning Conference (RLC), titled “Reinforcement Learning for Human-AI Collaboration via Probabilistic Intent Inference.”
  • Congratulations to Amirhossein Ravari, Yuxi Wang, and Peng Wu on their accepted papers at the 2025 Learning for Dynamics and Control Conference (L4DC).
  • Congratulations to Seyed Hamid Hosseini on being selected as a Best Student Paper Award Finalist at the 2025 American Control Conference (ACC).
  • Congratulations to Seyed Hamid Hosseini on having two papers accepted to the 2025 American Control Conference (ACC), including a collaborative work with Professor Derya Aksaray.
  • Received a NAIRR Pilot Project award (March–July 2025) with $34,722 in AWS Credits for the project “Statistical Inference through Data-Collection and Expert-Knowledge Incorporation.”
  • Congratulations to Mohammad Alali on his paper “Kernel-Based Particle Filtering for Scalable Inference in Partially Observed Boolean Dynamical Systems” being selected for a Finalist Paper Award at the 20th IFAC Symposium on Systems Identification (SYSID 2024) [April 2023]. [News Article]
  • Received a one-year collaborative research award from the United States Military Academy, West Point [July 2024].
  • Received a three-year award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in collaboration with multiple universities (PSU, USC, Kennesaw State, GWU) and industry partner Design Interactive, Inc. [July 2024].
  • Received a three-year research award from the Army Research Office [July 2024].
  • Our paper titled “Bayesian Optimization for Gaussian Process Modulated Inhomogeneous Poisson Process” was accepted at the 2024 International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) [Jan 2024].
  • Two papers accepted at the 2024 American Control Conference (ACC) with my students Amirhossein Ravari and Armita KazemiNajafabadi: “Implicit Human Perception Learning in Complex and Unknown Environments” and “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” was accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence [Jan 2024].
  • Received a four-year research award from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) [Oct 2023].
  • Received a one-year research award from the United States Military Academy, West Point [Oct 2023].
  • Received a three-year research award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) [Sep 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].
  • Received a three-year NIH NIBIB Trailblazer Award from the National Institutes of Health [June 2022].
  • 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

  • Outstanding Associate Editor Award, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS), 2024 (second consecutive year).
  • Best Paper Finalist Award, American Control Conference (ACC), 2025 — Seyed Hamid Hosseini.
  • Best Paper Finalist Award, 20th IFAC Symposium on Systems Identification (SYSID), 2024.
  • Outstanding Associate Editor Award, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS), 2023.
  • Best Paper Finalist Award, American Control Conference (ACC), 2023.
  • NIH NIBIB Trailblazer Award, National Institutes of Health, 2022.
  • Elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior Member, February 2021.
  • NSF CISE Career Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) Award, 2020.
  • IBM Research Almaden Distinguished Speaker, San Jose, CA, November 2019.
  • Distinguished Graduate Student Award for Excellence in Research – Doctoral, Texas A&M University, 2019.
  • Finalist Nominee, Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Texas A&M University, 2018.
  • Best Ph.D. Student Award, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, 2015.
  • Best Paper Finalist Award, 49th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, 2015.