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Dr Nabi Omidvar

Dr Nabi Omidvar

  • Position: University Academic Fellow (~Asst. Prof.) of Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services
  • Areas of expertise: computational intelligence; large-scale global optimization; machine learning; evolutionary computation; multi-objective optimization
  • Email: M.N.Omidvar@leeds.ac.uk
  • Location: 2.21g Sir William Henry Bragg Building
  • Website: Personal Website | Googlescholar

Profile

I am a University Academic Fellow (~Assistant Professor) joint between School of Computing and Leeds University Business School. I am also the current chair of the IEEE Taskforce on Large-Scale Global Optimization and a lead researcher in the Centre for Financial Technology and Innovation (FinTech).

Research interests

I have worked on various aspects of continuous global optimization (single- and multi-objective) with special interest in developing algorithms to exploit problem structure for large-scale or high-dimensional optimization. I have made several award winning contributions to the field of large-scale global optimization including the differential grouping algorithm which won the IEEE Transaction on Evolutionary Computation best paper award in 2017 and another algorithm which won the large-scale global optimization competition in IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation in 2019.

My current research interests are: the application of variable interaction analysis to improve the training efficiency of high-dimensional (deep) learning algorithm, applications of artificial intelligence in financial services such as credit scoring, and investigating structural aspect of large-scale continuous optimization problems such as variable interaction and its impact on problems with overlapping components, noise, and dynamic landscapes.

Qualifications

  • PhD, Computer Science, RMIT University, 2016
  • BSc, Mathematics (Statistics), RMIT University, 2014
  • BSc, Computer Science (1st class honours), RMIT University, 2010

Professional memberships

  • IEEE
  • IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
  • IEEE Taskforce on Large-Scale Global Optimization (Chair)

Student education

PhD Students:

  • Mr Luis Avendano Munoz (lead supervisor)
  • Mr Hao Tan (lead supervisor)

Research groups and institutes

  • Centre for Financial Technology