Ali Salehi

Staff AI Scientist & AI Innovation Lead

AI Leadership: Leading the development of AI solutions for ophthalmic products, focusing on pathology detection, disease classification, and progress prediction. Oversee project planning, requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and algorithm integration.

Algorithm Lead: Direct the creation of algorithms for OCT and Fundus imaging devices, including image reconstruction, denoising, enhancement, automatic tracking, alignment, feature extraction, segmentation, and analysis.

Stakeholder Management: Collaborate with ophthalmologists, optometrists, optical physicists, hardware and electrical engineers, and regulatory specialists to identify business requirements and ensure the success of AI and algorithm projects.

Collaborations and Mentorship: Collaborate with universities and research institutes such as the University of Washington and Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. Mentor AI researchers and developers through internship programs, one-on-one meetings, and training sessions.

Operational and Strategic Initiatives: Establish AI infrastructure, including annotation tools and data handling, cybersecurity assessments for AI projects, design processes such as annotation guidelines for AI development, provide regular training sessions for the team, update job descriptions, and improve interviewing and hiring processes.

Senior Scientist

Developed machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision models for reconstruction, signal processing, recognition, and semantic segmentation tasks on Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) data.

Designed and implemented data management systems for handling large and heterogeneous datasets, facilitating deep learning tasks.

Actively contributed to the development of new AI technologies and methodologies to enhance the capabilities of ophthalmic imaging

Mentored data science interns, providing guidance and fostering their technical growth and development.

Research Assistant

Developed compact and efficient dilated convolutional neural networks for multi-resolution dense optical flow estimation.

Designed a deep learning method to model relevant changes from the confocal microscopy image sequences to detect glaucoma progression.

Using the powerful 3D modeling software, Blender, implemented a synthetic stereo sequence generation module for training motion estimation algorithms.

Skills: Python, Tensorflow, Keras, High Performance Computing (Slurm), Anaconda, Docker, Blender

Systems Analyst

Performed vulnerability scanning of computer systems using Splunk Enterprise Security and Splunk UBA.

Developed SPL queries, reports, and dashboards to answer targeted security questions.

Skills: Splunk SPL, Splunk ES, Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, Dataproc, Dataflow), Splunk UBA

Computer Vision Researcher & Senior Software Engineer

Developed a real-time commercial vehicle-type classifier in C++ which is embedded in a large-scale commercial road surveillance system.

Improved accuracy of a commercial plate recognition system from 94% to 96% by designing a Convolutional Neural Network method.

Reduced the processing time of the vehicle detection module from 20 milliseconds to 7 milliseconds by utilizing Background Subtraction algorithms.

Developed vehicle distance and speed detection algorithms.

Skills: Scrum, Git, C++, Visual Studio, Linux, OpenCV, Multithreaded programming in C++, Caffe

Technical Manager & Software Engineer

Managed the operations of a web development team.

Design, implement and deploy about 10 modules for an e-commerce system.

Optimized the whole website by updating all of its core modules. This increased the website speed by about 60%.

Collaborated with other departments of the company to plan and develop high-quality products.

Managed and developed all the projects based on Agile (Scrum) methodology.

Skills: PHP, MySQL, Git

Ph.D. Computer Engineering

GPA: 3.98

Developing deep learning algorithms using Tensorflow in python for dense motion estimation from image sequences.

Developing algorithms for analyzing medical image sequences for detecting glaucoma progression from retinal images.

Relevant Courses: Computer Vision(A+), Machine Learning(A+), Bayesian Inference(A+), Random Signals & Noises(A)

M.Sc. Artificial Intelligence

GPA: 4.0

Developed a hierarchical feature extraction method using dictionary learning approaches to encode objects and scenes.

By using SVM as classifier in Matlab, the method achieved ≈ 49% accuracy (3% improvement over the existing methods) on the benchmark datasets.

Relevant Courses: Digital Image Processing(A+), Digital Video Processing(A+), Neural Networks & Fuzzy Systems(A+), Statistical Pattern Recognition(A), Complex Dynamical Networks (A)

B.Sc. Software Engineering

GPA: 3.96

Developed a Cellular Learning Automatons in C++ for edge detection in digital images.

Relevant Courses: Data Structures and Algorithms, Advanced Computer Programming, Artificial Intelligence, Discrete Structures, Object Oriented Programming, Software Engineering, Database Design, Information Retrieval, Computer Networks.

A.Sc. Software Engineering

GPA: 3.65

Using ASP.NET, C# and SQL Server, implemented a web based system for students to fill out their loan request forms online. It reduced paper consumption (10 pages per request) and made the request process easier.

Relevant Courses: Data Structures and Algorithms, Advanced Computer Programming, Discrete Structures, Object-Oriented Programming, Software Engineering, Computer Architecture.

Head Teaching Assistant

Assisted 40+ students to implement their junior projects including:

• Hand gesture recognition system on Raspberry Pi by Python
• Broken-light alarm and baby temperature monitoring systems using Arduino with C
• Smart mirror with face detection system on Raspberry Pi using Python.

Volunteer Teacher

Teaching students living in marginalized and deprived neighborhoods.

Teaching Assistant

• Assisted 30+ graduate students in developing their final projects for the course.
• Held weekly problem-solving sessions for 30+ students.

Association President

• Organized several scientific and social events for 500+ attendees each time
• Published about 10 magazines and newsletters
• Held several workshops for 50+ students each time

Volunteer Developer

• Improved 40% in exploration of the rescue robot by designing a fuzzy obstacle avoidance controller.
• Reduced exploration time about 60% by optimizing its decision-making module.

Graduate Herff Fellowship

One of the two recipients of the Herff Fellowship with financial support for conducting doctoral dissertation research work among 30+ graduate students.

Fight For Sight's Summer Student Fellowship

Recipient of summer student fellowship for the project: ”Detecting Progression of Glaucoma from Optic Nerve Head Images using a Convolutional Neural Network.”FFS in 2019

Outstanding Employee Award

Selected as distinguished employee for consistently performing high quality work as member and manager of the technical team.

National Graduate University Entrance Exam

Ranked top 0.01% in the nationwide university entrance exam for graduate degree among 300k+ competitors.

Received full scholarship for an M.Sc. program in computer engineering.

Top Student Award

1st Rank, in Cumulative GPA among 100+ B.Sc. software engineering students of the department, 2008 beginners.

1st Rank, in Cumulative GPA among 40+ A.Sc. software engineering students of the department, 2006 beginners.