
Dr Mahdi Rezaei
- Position: University Academic Fellow; Assistant Professor
- Areas of expertise: Computer Vision; Machine Learning; Autonomous Driving; Self-driving Cars; Road / Traffic Perception; Driver Behaviour Monitoring; Human Factors.
- Email: M.Rezaei@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 5342
- Location: Office 2.11, Institute for Transport Studies, 34-40 University Road
- Website: YouTube | Twitter | LinkedIn | Googlescholar | Researchgate | ORCID
Profile
Dr Mahdi Rezaei is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and a University Academic Fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS), University of Leeds. His background and main research interests are AI, ML, and Computer Vision for Autonomous Vehicles including driver/occupant monitoring, pedestrians’ intention prediction, and AV/road-user interactions. He has over 15 years of experience in academia and industry and currently leads a team of computer vision experts and researchers in transportation at the University of Leeds. Dr Rezaei is an executive member of the “Universities Transport Study Group” (UTSG) in the UK, a team leader in the EU Hi-Drive flagship project, a member of the Academic Advisory Group in the LIDA data scientist development programme (LIPAG), and also principle investigator and Co-I of multiple EU and UK funded projects in AV field.
Education
PhD in Computer Science, The University of Auckland. 2014. Top PhD Thesis Award.
Employment History:
- 2020 - Present, Assistant Professor (University Academic Fellow), Uni of Leeds, UK
- 2017 - 2020, Senior Researcher, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
- 2015 - 2020, Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Qazvin University, IR
- 2010 - 2017, Honorary Academic Staff, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- 2006 - 2010, Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Qazvin University, IR
Honours, Awards, Grants:
- MaVis – EPSRC, AI Visualisation 2023-2026 – (COI, £ 713,438.00)
- EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) 2022-2023 – (PI, £287,295.00)
- Hi-Drive – EU funded 2021-2025 – (COI, £ 1,508,785.00)
- Converted UDRIVE Dataset – DLR, German Aerospace Centre – (PI, £6,000.00)
- L3Pilot – EU Horizon 2020 Driving Automation 2017-2021 – (COI, € 877,500.00)
- Research England - World Class Laboratories Fund 2020-2021 – (COI, £54,852.00)
- 2 x Akira Nakamura Awards and Grant: 2011 and 2014. provided by Akira Nakamura, professor emeritus of Hiroshima University. (PI, ¥ 60,000.00)
- New Zealand Spark Ideas Challenge, $100,000.00 Qualifiers Award, 2011.
- Marsden Grant, 2012. Faculty grant for going to the final round of Marsden competition- the most challenging research grant in New Zealand, by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
- 3 x Best Paper Awards: ( IEEE Conference SensorCOMM (2007) | CVPR paper, University of Auckland (2014) | Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (2019)
- Best PhD Thesis Award, 2014. the University of Auckland
Selected videos & research outputs:
3D Vehicle Detection / Pedestrian Detection, and Speed Estimation Using a Single Camera:
Driver Behaviour Monitoring (Distraction, Drowsiness, Phoning / Texting, Yawning, Head Nodding,...)
Stop/Go Decision Making at Roundabouts for Autonomous Vehicles
Our contribution towards public health during the COVID-19 Pandemic:
Join our team at the Institute for Transport Studies, Ranked 12th in the world, as one of the most advanced research centres in the interdisciplinary field of Autonomous Vehicles, Self-driving Cars, Driver Behaviour Monitoring, and Human factors.
Talented prospective PhD students with relevant background are welcome to apply via our online system here and join our multideciplinary team at Institute for Transport Studies (ITS)*.
* Funded positions will be advertised publicly.
My Postdocs & PhD Students:
- Chenghao Qian (PhD Student) – 2023
- Tanveer Hussain (Postdoctoral Research Fellow) – 2022
- Vishnu Radhakrishnan (Postdoctoral Research Fellow) – 2022
- Mohsen Azarmi (PhD Student) – 2022
- Yiming Hou (PhD Student) – 2020
- Navid Raeesi (PhD Student) – 2019
- Dr Noor Saleem (PhD, Graduated) – 2019
Professional Engagements:
Editor and Organiser:
- Journal of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). Switzerland, Impact Factor: 5.0
- Journal of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220), 5-year Impact Factor: 3.275
Reviewer:
- IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
- IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technologies
- International Journal of Applied Science
- International Journal of Computer and Robotics
- International Journal of Sensors
- International Conference on Pattern Recognition
- Asian Conference on Pattern Recognition
- International Conference of Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns
- Pacific-Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology
Panel Member / Technical Program Committee (TPC):
- International Conference of Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns
- Pacific-Rim Symposium on Image and Video Technology
- RoboCup Asia-Pacific Symposium
- IEEE
Latest Publications:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=9Z7J8ecAAAAJ&hl=en
Responsibilities
- Research, lecturing, and supervsion of postdocs, PhDs, and postgrad students
Research interests
- Computer Vision
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine Learning
- Autonomous Vehicles | Driver Behaviour Monitoring | Pedestrian Detection and Tracking
- Traffic Science Segmentation and Understanding
- Human Factors
A short video spotlight on my monograph book published by Springer International Publishing:
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>Computer Vision for Driver Assistance
Professional memberships
- IEEE
- Computer Vision Foundation
- CerV Research Group
Student education
For your questions and any further information feel free to email me via m.rezaei@leeds.ac.uk

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