Dr Ariba Abasi is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of engineering, organisations and social justice. Her research explores how systems of governance, professional practice and organisational processes shape labour rights, social sustainability and ethical decision-making within engineering and global supply chains.

Her work focuses on modern slavery, labour governance and human rights, with particular interests in ethical supply chains, social sustainability and responsible engineering practice. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, she examines how social harms can become embedded within everyday organisational systems and how these systems can be redesigned to promote more equitable and sustainable outcomes. Dr Abasi's research has examined bonded labour, vernacular accounting practices and the enduring influence of colonial legacies on contemporary labour systems. Her work contributes to broader discussions on social responsibility, sustainability and the role of organisations in addressing complex societal challenges.

She is also interested in engineering education and the ways in which systems thinking, human rights and social responsibility can be embedded into curricula and professional practice. Through interdisciplinary collaboration and external engagement, her scholarship seeks to strengthen the societal impact of engineering and contribute to more just and sustainable futures.

Dr Abasi has presented her research internationally and is developing a growing body of scholarship on themes of accounting, modern slavery, social sustainability and labour governance. She is a Lecturer in Engineering Management and Professional Practice in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

Dr. Mahrokh Abdollahi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Telecom Resilience Centre (NTRC), University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Data Engineering from UTS in 2016 and 2022, respectively. During her doctoral studies, she was awarded a UTS Doctoral Scholarship, the 2019 FEIT Female HDR Top-Up Scholarship, and the Vice-Chancellor’s Postgraduate Research Student Conference Fund. From 2006 to 2014, she worked as a Computer Engineer on a range of networking projects. Prior to joining NTRC, she worked at CSIRO’s Data61, where she contributed to research in O-RAN and privacy-enhancing technologies. At NTRC, she leads and contributes to research in telecommunications resilience, emergency communications, O-RAN, machine learning and AI for communication systems, software-defined networking, privacy, and cybersecurity.

A cybersecurity consultant, educator, and researcher with over 15 years of industry experience, Montii specialises in strengthening organisational security through incident response, SOC optimisation, and AI-driven security practices. He has extensive hands-on experience deploying and integrating leading security technologies, including SIEM, EDR, SOAR, and AI-assisted analytics platforms, to improve detection and response outcomes.

Montii has worked with global enterprise clients as well as SMEs, advising on security operations design, vendor selection, and technology benchmarking. His expertise spans compliance landscapes such as ISO, PCI DSS, GDPR, and SOC 2, where he aligns governance requirements with technical controls and vendor capabilities to deliver measurable security improvements.

Alongside his consultancy, Montii teaches and mentors professionals in applied threat intelligence, incident management, and the integration of AI into enterprise security stacks. His focus is on ensuring organisations, from fast-growing SMEs to global corporations, can adapt to the evolving vendor ecosystem and leverage next-generation tools effectively.

Research and Practice Areas

• Incident Response Readiness & Simulation – developing frameworks organisations can use to test, benchmark, and strengthen their response capabilities.
  
  
• AI-Augmented Security Operations – applying AI and LLMs within SIEM, SOAR, and EDR platforms to accelerate detection, triage, and response.
  
  
• SOC Effectiveness & Vendor Benchmarking – evaluating SOC services and technology providers to compare value, scalability, and operational impact.
  
  
• Threat Intelligence at Scale – leveraging AI to automate enrichment, correlate threat feeds, and integrate intelligence across multiple vendor platforms.
  
  
• Governance, Risk & Compliance Tooling – examining how AI-driven platforms and vendor solutions can streamline assurance and reporting processes.
  
  
• Resilient Architectures – designing adaptive, cloud-native environments with vendor technologies that integrate predictive analytics and autonomous defence.

Mr. Abir is a second-year PhD researcher at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), affiliated with the School of Electrical and Data Engineering. He is supervised by Dr. Mehran Abolhasan, Dr. Justin Lipman, and Dr. Negin Shariati Moghadam. His research focuses on  AI-Native Topology Learning and Optimization of Integrated 6G Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs). In particular, his work investigates the application of spatiotemporal graph-representative learning techniques for modeling and orchestrating the dynamic topologies of heterogeneous, multi-layer NTNs in next-generation wireless systems.

Mr. Abir’s PhD research is supported by the NTT Group (Japan) and the Food Agility Cooperative Research Center (CRC) Ltd. (Australia) under the Australian Government CRC Program. This work contributes to the project “Sustainable Sensing, Enhanced Connectivity, and Data Analytics for Precision Urban and Rural Agriculture,” conducted within the RF and Communication Technologies (RFCT) Research Laboratory at UTS.

Prof. Mehran Abolhasan is an internationally recognised researcher in Communication Engineering, with expertise in wireless communications and networking. His research spans key areas including 5G/6G wireless networks, the Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity, Software Defined Networking (SDN), Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Vehicular Networking.

He has established a distinguished research track record through the publication of high-quality papers in leading journals and conferences, with over 12,000 citations and an H-index of 42 (Google Scholar). He has also been recognised among Stanford University’s top 2% of scientists worldwide, reflecting his sustained research impact.

His contributions to the advancement of Communication Engineering include the development of theoretical and simulation frameworks, algorithms, protocols, and experimental testbeds, resulting in more than 200 publications, including numerous articles in top-tier IEEE journals. He has also made significant contributions to the research community through his roles as a reviewer, technical program committee member for major international conferences and journals.

Prof. Abolhasan has over 20 years of experience in leading research programs, laboratories, and higher degree research (HDR) students. He is the founding leader of the Intelligent Networks and Applications Lab (iNAL) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where he has established advanced capabilities for the modelling, development, and evaluation of next-generation communication technologies.

He has held several senior leadership roles, including Director of Research Programs and Deputy Head of School (Research) within the Faculty of Engineering and IT. He currently a member of the Telecom Research Institute and leads the ASTRID (Advancing STEM, Technology Research and Deployment) program, a major collaborative R&D initiative between UTS and NBN Co, focused on addressing critical challenges in telecommunications through large-scale industry-engaged research. 

His research is characterised by strong industry engagement and impact, with successful translation into practical technologies, commercial outcomes, and the development of new products and a start-up company. He has secured over $10 million in research funding, including grants from ARC, CRC, industry, and government partners.

In addition, he has contributed to international standardisation efforts as a Head of Australian Delegates and contributing member of the ISO/IEC IoT standardisation committee (SC41), and is a Senior Member of IEEE.

Dr Mohammad Abuhilaleh received his B.S. degree in Electrical Power Engineering from Yarmouk University, Jordan, and the M.Eng. degree in Energy Planning and Policy and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. He is currently a Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney. He also served as a Subject Coordinator and Lecturer at Northeastern University, China, as part of the Sydney Smart Technology College (SSTC) program, a joint initiative established in 2020 between Northeastern University and the University of Technology Sydney. Prior to his academic career, he worked for eight years as a power engineer at the National Electric Power Company in Jordan. His research interests include microgrids, hybrid AC/DC microgrids, renewable energy integration, and power system control.

Lisa Aditya is a Research Fellow working in water and wastewater treatment, with core expertise in microalgae biotechnology. Her broader research also extends to semiconductor wastewater treatment, where she applies catalytic and advanced oxidation processes to remove industrial contaminants such as hydrogen peroxide, triazole compounds, and PFAS.

Her research has resulted in two Australian patent applications for wastewater treatment technologies that are currently undergoing industrial and commercial evaluation. All of her peer-reviewed publications have been published in leading Q1 journals, with two recognised as Highly Cited Papers. Since 2023, she has taught and tutored engineering subjects at the University of Technology Sydney, including Fluid Mechanics, Heat and Mass Transfer, and Process Simulation. She also supervises master’s and PhD students.

Currently she serves as a Chief Investigator on an industry-linked research project with Aerofloat focused on PFAS removal technologies. She also works directly and closely with Infinite Water International on hydrogen peroxide and triazole removal from semiconductor wastewater.

Sajib Ahmed received a B.Sc. degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Bangladesh, in 2010. He received a Master of Engineering Science degree from the Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the Department of Electrical Engineering in 2024 on full research mode. His research area includes Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) of solar Photovoltaic System, Flexible Power Point Tracking (FPPT), DC-DC converter, Grid-connected inverter, etc. He was a graduate research assistant (GRA) at the Power Electronics and Renewable Energy Research Laboratory (PEARL) at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia since 2021 to 2024. 

He is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia since January 2025. The current research topic includes Self-resonant Transformer and Self-resonant Converter. He is also working as a casual academic at UTS.

Dr Nawshad Akther is a Casual Academic in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney. She is also a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney. Dr Akther received her PhD in Environmental Engineering from UTS and completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from the American University of Sharjah and Khalifa University, respectively. 

Her research spans advanced water treatment, membrane science, desalination and sustainable resource recovery. Her current research investigates advanced oxidation processes for water treatment, with a particular focus on the formation and control of disinfection by-products. She is recognised for her work on graphene oxide- and graphene derivative-modified nanocomposite membranes for forward osmosis. Her broader research interests include emerging contaminants, membrane fouling, nanofiltration and the selective recovery of critical minerals from complex water and industrial waste streams.

Dr Akther has published more than 30 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading international journals. She has received several awards for her research and science communication, including the Membrane Society of Australasia Early Career Researcher Award (2024), the Excellent Researcher Award from the ARC Research Hub for Energy-efficient Separation (2022), the MSA Best Student Award (2021), the MSA Best Short Talk Award (2020), the UTS Three Minute Thesis Competition Award (2020), the UTS Higher Degree by Research Director’s Commendation for Research Excellence (2019), and the UTS Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology Higher Degree by Research Collaboration Experience Award (2019).

Hiyam is a senior accomplished university academic and researcher in Project Management, Leadership and Education in multi- disciplinary projects. She is also the Director of the Master of Engineering Management and the Deputy Director-Students in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney.

Dr. Husam Al-Najjar is a Lecturer and Researcher (Asst. Prof.) and serves as Course Director of the Bachelor of Information Systems at the School of Computer Science, University of Technology Sydney (UTS). He specialises in Information Systems, spatial decision support systems, Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) and automated workflows for climate-induced natural-hazard modelling, translating cutting-edge research into practical solutions for business intelligence, smart-city development, and disaster resilience.

His research advances spatial information systems and AI-powered algorithms—including machine learning, optimization techniques, and large language models (LLMs)—to accelerate decision-making and enhance public safety through scalable, explainable, and innovative methods. He contributes to this, for instance, by developing novel computational approaches that enable first responders and agencies (such as insurance companies) to rapidly assess the impacts of natural disasters—streamlining operations, reducing costs, and delivering faster, more targeted support to the most at-risk communities.

He earned his PhD from UTS, and his research is widely published in high-impact Q1 journals. Recognitions include the Best Paper Award at ISPRS Geospatial Week (Enschede, Netherlands, 2019), Highly Cited Papers acknowledgments in 2021 and 2023 (Clarivate, 2025), and CSIRO program funding (2025) for advancing code-free development platforms in higher education. These initiatives strengthen digital capabilities, support scalable learning, and create enduring competitive advantages for both learners and institutions.

He collaborates with leading institutions across Europe, the USA, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea, advancing international knowledge exchange in smart-city technologies and hazard-modelling algorithms. At UTS, he coordinates and teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programs and supervises Honours, Master’s and PhD students, preparing the next generation of professionals for AI-driven digital transformation.

He is active in academic leadership, chairing multiple sessions at IEEE IGARSS—the flagship annual global event for scientists and professionals in geospatial technology. He also serves on the committees of the Australian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS) and the International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research (ICISER), Nashville, USA, and is a member of the UNSW-UTS Trustworthy Digital Society. These roles underscore his expertise and leadership in advancing algorithmic innovation to address global challenges.

≡ Prospective PhD candidates are invited to email Husam.Al-Najjar@uts.edu.au with a CV and a research proposal outlining the study’s novelty, main contribution, and significance.

• For more information regarding the eligibility criteria, visit here
• For general scholarship information and application deadlines, visit here
• Learn more about funding types on our funding page. Click here

Dr. Fatma Al-Widyan is an entrepreneur, lecturer at the School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, and the Director of Student Teams.  In her capacity as Director of Student Teams, she leads the faculty’s Teams' plans, budget, and administrative and financial strategy, to unlock UTS’s students' potential.

Dr Al Widyan developed new strategic directions and a clear framework for tracking innovation trends in our student's education by creating a solid vision for the projects-based Teams that align with the curriculum to provide a successful knowledge aspiration. Al-Widyan is leading the student innovation in the fields of Automotive, Space, and Engineering Design Methodologies in the Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology such as the UTS Motorsports Autonomous Car, the UTS Motorsports Electric Car, the UTS Mars Rover, the UTS Rocketry, ATN Solar Car, and Solar Decathlon Design Challenge.

Dr. Al-Widyan is a senior- level who brings over 5 years of extensive experience in management, engineering and technology, and innovation in the field of higher education. Also, Dr. Alwidyan led an exceptional strategic shift in the Faculty's extracurricular activities, initiating innovative projects, improving Budget utilization, and living students' experience across various fields.

Under Dr. Al-Widyan's leadership, the UTS Student Teams achieved numerous awards. Notably, in 2023, the UTS Motorsport Team won the Inspiring Motorsport Team in 2023 from SAE- A formula competition. In the Australian Rover Challenge 2022, the UTS Rover Team won the Best Team Culture and Third Place overall. In the Solar Decathlon Design Challenge 2022 in the areas of design culture, and climate change -The UTS Team came out on top in the New Housing category of the competition, earning the title of WINNERS 2022. Furthermore, the UTS Rocketry Team won the SHOAL Award - Modelling and Simulation Award 2020 in the Australian Universities Rocket Competition and Best Payload Design (Crystallising honey and flipping a coin from 10k feet). They also participated in the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA) Spaceport America Cup in 2023.

Recently, Dr Al Widyan's research focused more on Engineering Education, with an interest in Team-Based Research Projects, Active Learning, and Teamwork. Dr Al-widyan teaches fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering, Strength of Materials, and Engineering Technologies. Dr. Al Widyan is a faculty board and member of the Engineering Australia committee.

Dr. Al-Widyan joined UTS in 2014. She holds a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering and a Bachelor's degree from Jordan University of Science and Technology. Dr Al-Widyan received her PhD in PhD in Mechanical Engineering- Transportation/ Passenger Behavior from the University of Technology Sydney in 2018. Her research proposed a novel effort-based theoretical framework for pedestrian route choice problems to discover principles pedestrians use to select their routes. Pedestrian chooses their route by optimizing certain criteria such as distance, time, and effort. Several possible criteria that could be used to predict the route choices of a pedestrian are re-assessed. In most cases, the common criteria of a pedestrian route choice are route length and travel time. The effort is proposed as an additional criterion, which indicates metabolic energy.

Dr Ahmed Al-Zubaydi is a Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering at UTS. He holds a PhD from UTS, with a research focus on thermal systems, particularly in the areas of heat exchangers, energy recovery ventilation, and sustainable cooling technologies. His scholarly work includes experimental and computational investigations into polymer heat exchangers and innovative cooling systems that leverage evaporation and night sky radiation.

Dr Al-Zubaydi is a member of several professional bodies including ASME, ASHRAE, CIBSE, AIRAH, SBSE, and the Australian Solar Cooling Interest Group (ausSCIG).