Shahin Atakishiyev
PhD Candidate in Computing Science
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Office: Computing Science Centre (CSC) 2-05

Shahin Atakishiyev is from the Mirzabayli village of Gabala, Azerbaijan. He received a BSc Computer Engineering degree from Qafqaz University, Azerbaijan in June 2015, and an MSc Computer Engineering degree with a specialization in Software Engineering and Intelligent Systems from the University of Alberta, Canada in January 2018. Currently, he is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, working at the Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) lab under the supervision of Prof. Randy Goebel. Shahin's research interests include Safe, Ethical, and Explainable Artificial Intelligence and its applications to real-world problems.

Email  |  CV  |  Google Scholar  

  News
  • Mar 2024: Our paper on situation awareness framework for autonomous driving was accepted to the IEEE IV-2024 Conference in Jeju, South Korea. [Paper]
  • Mar 2024: New paper (a preprint) on safety implications of explainable AI in end-to-end autonomous driving is available. [Paper]
  • Jan 2024: Gave a seminar on our situation awareness framework for autonomous driving to the Interactive Robotics Group of the CSAIL lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • Jan 2024: Awarded the Graduate Student Travel Award for academic travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States.
  • Nov 2023: Awarded the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES) for academic achievements in doctoral study.
  • Aug 2023: Passed the PhD Candidacy Exam.
  • Jul 2023: Our paper on explaining autonomous driving actions with visual question answering (VQA) was accepted to the IEEE ITSC-2023 Conference in Bilbao, Spain. [Paper] [Code]
  • May 2023: Joined Huawei Technologies Canada as a PhD Research Intern.
  • Jan 2023: Gave a seminar to the Safe Reinforcement Learning group at the Technical University of Munich.
  • Nov 2022: Our paper on the conceptual framework for explainable autonomous driving was accepted to the Explainable AI for Intelligent Transportation Systems book. [Paper]
  • Oct 2022: Participated as a featured panelist at AI4Society's Ethical Data and AI Salon.
  • Aug 2022: Presented a poster in the University of Alberta-Huawei Joint Innovation Collaboration Workshop (UAHJIC-2022) in Edmonton, Canada. [Poster]
  • Aug 2022: Presented ongoing doctoral research in the Tea Time Talks seminar series in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta. [Slides]
  • Jun 2022: Gave a seminar on the conceptual framework for explainable autonomous driving at Baku Engineering University in Baku, Azerbaijan.
  • May 2022: Presented a poster at AI Week 2022 in Edmonton, Canada.
  • Feb 2022: Presented a paper at the AAAI TRASE-2022 Workshop in Vancouver, Canada.
  • Feb 2022: Presented a poster at the Reverse EXPO 2022 in Edmonton, Canada.
  • Feb 2022: Awarded a scholarship from the AAAI-2022 Conference.
  • Nov 2021: Our article "A Multi-Component Framework for the Analysis and Design of Explainable Artificial Intelligence" was published in the Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction journal.
  • Jan 2021: Our article "Analysis of Word Embeddings using Fuzzy Clustering" was published in Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing book series.
  • Sep 2019: Started a PhD in Computing Science at the University of Alberta.
Current Research
• Development of Explainable Artificial Intelligence Approaches for Autonomous Driving

Currently, doctoral research focuses on building explainable AI approaches for autonomous driving. In this context, the main focus is to develop a safe, ethical, and explainable AI framework for autonomous vehicles that instills trust in users by providing faithful rationales for real-time action decisions.

Papers

 [7] Shahin Atakishiyev, Mohammad Salameh, Randy Goebel. Safety Implications of Explainable Artificial Intelligence in End-to-End Autonomous Driving. Under review. [PDF]

[6] Shahin Atakishiyev, Mohammad Salameh, Randy Goebel. Incorporating Explanations into Human-Machine Interfaces for Trust and Situation Awareness in Autonomous Vehicles. Accepted for publication in IEEE IV-2024. [PDF]

[5] Shahin Atakishiyev, Mohammad Salameh, Hengshuai Yao, Randy Goebel. Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Autonomous Driving: A Comprehensive Overview and Field Guide for Future Research Directions. Under review. [PDF]

[4] Shahin Atakishiyev, Mohammad Salameh, Housam Babiker, Randy Goebel. Explaining Autonomous Driving Actions with Visual Question Answering. In Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Bilbao, Spain, 1207-1214, 2023. [PDF]

[3] Shahin Atakishiyev, Mohammad Salameh, Hengshuai Yao, Randy Goebel. Towards Safe, Explainable, and Regulated Autonomous Driving. In Explainable AI for Intelligent Transportation Systems, 32-52, 2023. [PDF]

[2] Mi-Young Kim, Shahin Atakishiyev, Housam Babiker, Nawshad Farruque, Randy Goebel, Osmar R. Zaïane, Mohammad-Hossein Motallebi, Juliano Rabelo, Talat Syed, Hengshuai Yao, Peter Chun. A Multi-Component Framework for the Analysis and Design of Explainable Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction , 3(4), 900-921, 2021. [PDF]

[1] Shahin Atakishiyev and Marek Reformat. Analysis of Word Embeddings Using Fuzzy Clustering. Recent Developments and the New Direction in Soft-Computing Foundations and Applications, 539-551, 2021. [PDF]
Teaching
Fall 2022: Instructor for NLP 3101: Natural Language Processing, a graduate level course at the Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University. Taught the course online and remotely from Edmonton, Canada.
Winter 2022: CMPUT 175: Introduction to the Foundations of Computation II (Prof. Osmar Zaïane and Sadaf Ahmed's Teaching Assistant (TA), University of Alberta)

Fall 2019: CMPUT 463/563: Probabilistic Graphical Models (Prof. Russell Greiner's TA, University of Alberta)
  Selected Awards
  • Jan 2024: Graduate Student Travel Award (a one-time payment award) for
    academic travel to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • Nov 2023: Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (a one-time payment award)
  • Feb 2022: AAAI-2022 Conference Scholarship (a one-time payment award)
  • May 2020: Huawei Canada's Doctoral Research Funding (May 2020 - Apr 2024)
  • May 2020: Doctoral Scholarship by the Ministry of Science and Education of the
    Republic of Azerbaijan (May 2020 - Oct 2023)
  • Mar 2019: Doctoral Funding by the Department of Computing Science of the
    University of Alberta (Sep 2019 - Apr 2023)
  • Sep 2015: Master’s Scholarship by the Ministry of Science and Education of the
    Republic of Azerbaijan (Jan 2016 - Jan 2018)

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