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Dr Aya Hussein

Dr Aya Hussein

Senior Research Fellow
  • PhD in Computer Science from UNSW- Canberra in 2020
  • MSc in Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, 2015
  • BSc in Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, 2011
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School of Systems & Computing

I am a research fellow (level B) at the School of Systems and Computing, Ƶ, Australia. I'm an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence and a reviewer for over fifteen journals and conferences.My research interests include machine learning and multi-agent systems. My current researchfocuses on combining human and machine intelligence by studying interaction schemes that allow humans to teach machines and to effectively team up with them in the field.

I received my PhD in Computer Science from UNSW- Canberra in 2020. During my PhD, I investigated different aspects that facilitates the realisation of high-performance teams that combine human and machine intelligence. In particular, I focused on both Human Factors and Swarm Robotics, where I studied performance, trust, and transparency in Human-Swarm Teaming. I got my Bachelors and Masters degrees in Computer Engineering from Cairo University in 2011 and 2015. My Master research was about Arabic text diacritisation where I used Natural Language Processing (NLP) to enable the automatic restoration of the diacritics which is an essential pre-processing task for many Arabic NLP applications.
E-mail
a.hussein@adfa.edu.au
  • Book Chapters | 2024
    Hussein M; Keshk M; Hussein A, 2024, 'Non-stationarity Detection inModel-Free Reinforcement Learning viaValue Function Monitoring', in , pp. 350 - 362,
    Book Chapters | 2024
    Talha M; Hussein A; Hossny M, 2024, 'LiDAR Inpainting ofUAV Based 3D Point Cloud Using Supervised Learning', in , pp. 203 - 214,
    Book Chapters | 2022
    Talha M; Hussein A; Hossny M, 2022, 'Autonomous UAV Navigation inWilderness Search-and-Rescue Operations Using Deep Reinforcement Learning', in , pp. 733 - 746,
    Book Chapters | 2021
    Hussein A; Abbass HA, 2021, 'Stable Belief Estimation in Shepherd-Assisted Swarm Collective Decision Making', in Shepherding UxVs for Human-Swarm Teaming: An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Unmanned X Vehicles, Springer International Publishing, pp. 165 - 185,
  • Journal articles | 2023
    Hepworth AJ; Hussein A; Reid DJ; Abbass HA, 2023, 'Swarm analytics: Designing information markers to characterise swarm systems in shepherding contexts', Adaptive Behavior, 31, pp. 323 - 349,
    Journal articles | 2023
    Nguyen H; Hussein A; Garratt MA; Abbass HA, 2023, 'Swarm Metaverse for Multi-Level Autonomy Using Digital Twins', Sensors, 23,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Hussein A; Elsawah S; Petraki E; Abbass HA, 2022, 'A machine education approach to swarm decision-making in best-of-n problems', Swarm Intelligence, 16, pp. 59 - 90,
    Journal articles | 2022
    Hussein A; Ghignone L; Nguyen T; Salimi N; Nguyen H; Wang M; Abbass HA, 2022, 'Characterization of Indicators for Adaptive Human-Swarm Teaming', Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 9, pp. 745958,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Abbass H; Petraki E; Hussein A; McCall F; Elsawah S, 2021, 'A model of symbiomemesis: Machine education and communication as pillars for human-autonomy symbiosis', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 379,
    Journal articles | 2021
    Hepworth AJ; Baxter DP; Hussein A; Yaxley KJ; Debie E; Abbass HA, 2021, 'Human-Swarm-Teaming Transparency and Trust Architecture', IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, 8, pp. 1281 - 1295,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Hussein A; Elsawah S; Abbass HA, 2020, 'The reliability and transparency bases of trust in human-swarm interaction: principles and implications', Ergonomics, 63, pp. 1116 - 1132,
    Journal articles | 2020
    Hussein A; Elsawah S; Abbass HA, 2020, 'Trust Mediating Reliability–Reliance Relationship in Supervisory Control of Human–Swarm Interactions', Human Factors, 62, pp. 1237 - 1248,
  • Preprints | 2022
    Hepworth A; Hussein A; Reid D; Abbass H, 2022, Contextually Aware Intelligent Control Agents for Heterogeneous Swarms, ,
    Preprints | 2022
    Hepworth A; Hussein A; Reid D; Abbass H, 2022, Contextually Aware Intelligent Control Agents for Heterogeneous Swarms, ,
    Preprints | 2022
    Hepworth A; Hussein A; Reid D; Abbass H, 2022, Swarm Analytics: Designing Information Markers to Characterise Swarm Systems in Shepherding Contexts,
    Conference Papers | 2022
    Hussein A; Petraki E; Elsawah S; Abbass H, 2022, 'Autonomous Swarm Shepherding Using Curriculum-Based Reinforcement Learning', in Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Virtual Event New Zealand, pp. 633 - 641, presented at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Virtual Event New Zealand, 09 May 2022 - 13 May 2022,
    Conference Papers | 2021
    Liu J; Hussein A; Anavatti S; Garratt M; Abbass HA, 2021, 'UGV Path Planning based on an Improved Continuous Ant Colony Optimisation Algorithm', in 2021 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, SSCI 2021 - Proceedings,
    Conference Papers | 2021
    Mccall F; Hussein A; Petraki E; Elsawah S; Abbass H, 2021, 'Towards a systematic educational framework for human-machine teaming', in TALE 2021 - IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education, Proceedings, pp. 375 - 382,
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Hussein A; ELsawah S; Abbass H, 2020, 'A System Dynamics Model for Human Trust in Automation under Speed and Accuracy Requirements', in Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society ... Annual Meeting Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Annual Meeting, SAGE Publications, Seattle, Washington, USA, presented at 63rd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Seattle, Washington, USA, 28 October 2020 - 01 November 2019,
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Hussein A; Elsawah S; Abbass H, 2020, 'Investigating Gender Differences in Human Interactions with a Transparent Swarm', in Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society ... Annual Meeting Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Annual Meeting, SAGE Publications, SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, pp. 853 - 857, presented at 63rd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, SAGE Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA, 28 October 2020 - 01 November 2019,
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Hussein A; Elsawah S; Abbass HA, 2020, 'Swarm collective wisdom: A fuzzy-based consensus approach for evaluating agents confidence in global states', in IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems,
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Hussein A; Elsawah S; Abbass HA, 2020, 'Towards Trust-Aware Human-Automation Interaction: An Overview of the Potential of Computational Trust Models', in Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii, USA, presented at Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii, USA, 07 January 2020,
    Conference Presentations | 2019
    Hussein A, 2019, 'Modelling Human-Trust in Automation Using System Dynamics', presented at System Modelling Conference, 11 September 2019
    Conference Papers | 2018
    Hussein A; Abbass H, 2018, 'Mixed Initiative Systems for Human-Swarm Interaction: Opportunities and Challenges', in 2018 2nd Annual Systems Modelling Conference, SMC 2018,
    Preprints | 2018
    Hussein A; Ghignone L; Nguyen T; Salimi N; Nguyen H; Wang M; Abbass HA, 2018, Towards Bi-Directional Communication in Human-Swarm Teaming: A Survey,
    Conference Papers | 2018
    Wang M; Hussein A; Rojas RF; Shafi K; Abbass HA, 2018, 'EEG-Based Neural Correlates of Trust in Human-Autonomy Interaction', in Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence, SSCI 2018, pp. 350 - 357,
    Conference Papers | 2016
    Metwally AS; Hosam E; Hassan MM; Rashad SM, 2016, 'WAP: A Novel Automatic Test Generation Technique Based on Moth Flame Optimization', in 2016 IEEE 27TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SOFTWARE RELIABILITY ENGINEERING (ISSRE), IEEE, CANADA, Ottawa, pp. 59 - 64, presented at 27th IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE), CANADA, Ottawa, 23 October 2016 - 27 October 2016,
    Conference Papers | 2016
    Metwally AS; Rashwan MA; Atiya AF, 2016, 'A Multi-Layered Approach for Arabic Text Diacritization', in PROCEEDINGS OF 2016 IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CLOUD COMPUTING AND BIG DATA ANALYSIS (ICCCBDA 2016), IEEE, PEOPLES R CHINA, Chengdu, pp. 389 - 393, presented at IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing and Big Data Analysis (ICCCBDA), PEOPLES R CHINA, Chengdu, 05 June 2016 - 07 June 2016,

  • Chief investigator, UNSW Research Infrastructure Scheme - 68,000 AUD granted to the "Heterogeneous Robot Swarms" project, 2023
  • Lead Chief Investigator,UNSW internalfund of 7500 AUD granted to the Distributed Intelligence research group which I lead and have co-founded, 2022
  • Chief investigator, UNSW internalfund of 3000 AUD has been granted to the Deep Learning research group which I have co-founded, 2022
  • Sole Chief Investigator,RG213520grant fromDepartment of Defence and the Office of National Intelligence in Continual Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous shepherding ($20,000), 2021

Scholarships & Awards:

  • DAIRNet Women in AI scholarship to attend the Australian Defence Science, Technology and Research (ADSTAR) summit 2022
  • UNSW Arc Postgraduate Council Research Student Awardfor my contribution to both research and school life,2020
  • Registration Grant for IEEE WCCI 2020
  • Winner of the IEEE CIS Webinar Competition on "Emerging Topics and Applications of Computational Intelligence", 2019
  • Student Travel Grant of the HFES Human Performance Modelling Technical Group 2019
  • Scholarship for attending "Research to Impact" program, Canberra Innovation Network 2019
  • Scholarship for attending Data61 & DST Cyber Summer School, Melbourne 2018
  • UNSW Tuition Fees Scholarship 2017-2020

Review Activities:

  • IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems

  • IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems

  • IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics

  • Autonomous Robots

  • Computers in Human Behavior

  • Mathematics and Computers in Simulation

  • Environmental Modelling & Software

  • Others; my full list of verified reviews can be found on my .

  • Associate editor at IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence
  • Lead organizer of the IEEE IJCNN special session on “Learning in swarm and multi-robot systems”, 2023. CFP can be found here:
  • Sole speaker in a on "Human Teachable Reinforcement Learning" at ICONIP 2022

  • Co-organisation of on "Cognitive and Social Aspects of Human Multi-Robot Interaction", 2021

  • Development of UGV teleoperation system for thevoluntary extra-curricular club activity Exercise Enigma, Ƶ, 2021

  • Manager of the AI lab at Ƶ, 2021 - present

  • Member of the team developing a gesture-based multi-robot control system for thevoluntary extra-curricular club activities, Ƶ, 2021

  • Student representative in the Research Leadership Group (RLG) & School Board, School of Engineering and IT, UNSW-Canberra, 2020

  • Volunteer in IEEE SSCI, Canberra,Australia, 2020

  • Volunteer in Canberra Artificial Intelligence Summer School (CAISS2020), Virtual event, 2020

  • Invited presentation at the 3rd IEEE Systems Modelling Conference, Canberra, Australia, 2019

  • Session co-chair in the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual meeting, Seattle, USA, 2019

  • Volunteer in IEEE CIS YoWIENet Student Workshop- UNSW-Canberra, Australia, 2018

  • Volunteer in IEEE International Computer Engineering Conference (ICENCO), Cairo, Egypt, 2012-2016

Professional Memberships:

  • IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS)

  • IEEE Woman in Engineering (WIE)

  • Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)