Academic Profile : Faculty

Sameer Alam.png picture
Assoc Prof Sameer Alam
Associate Professor and Director of Air Traffic Management Research Institute (ATMRI), School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Associate Professor, School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Director, Air Traffic Management Research Institute (ATMRI)
Sameer Alam is the Director of the Air Traffic Management Research Institute and Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He leads a research team 26 research scientist and 6 PhD students on Next Generation of Intelligent Air Traffic Management systems.

Sameer received PhD in Computer Science, specializing in Machine Learning, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia, in 2008. His post-doctoral research on AI algorithms for risk assessment of advanced air traffic concepts was supported by Eurocontrol (CARE Innov Grant 2009-2010) and Air Services Australia (ARC Grant 2010-2011).

In 2011, he was appointed University Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at UNSW, Canberra, Australia, and later promoted to University Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in 2015. He was then appointed Associate Professor (Aerospace Engineering) at NTU Singapore in 2017, and was granted tenure in 2023.
Sameer has also been a visiting scientist at NASA Ames, California (2011), and École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile (French Civil Aviation University) in Toulouse (2016-2017). Sameer also served as Co-Director at the Saab-NTU Joint Lab (2020-2024), leading research in Digital and Remote Tower technologies.

Sameer's research interests are in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms, applied to open research problems in Air Traffic Management and Airport Operations. His expertise encompasses Human-AI Teaming. Conformal Automation, Multi-Agent Systems, Deep Reinforcement Learning, Computer Vision and Learning under Uncertainty. He has authored/co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed research publications in high-impact journals and peer-reviewed conferences.

He became an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligent in 2023, Associate Editor for the AIAA Journal of Air Transport (special issue) 2023, member of the Editorial Board of the Elsevier Transportation Research-Part C in 2018, Associate Editor for the IEEE Intelligent Transportation System Conference (contributed papers) 2024, and appointed on the Program Committee for the prestigious FAA-Eurocontrol's US & Europe ATM R&D Seminar in 2020.

Moreover, his research is recognized by several competitive awards, including:
ANU Science Medal, Australian National University, 2011
Fresh Scientist Award, Science in Public, Australia, 2009
Young Tall Poppy ACT Scientist of the Year Award, Australian Institute of Policy and Science, 2011 and over 10 Best paper wards in prestigious conferences US-Europe ATM R&D Seminar, International Conference on Research in Air Transportation, Digital Avionics Systems Conference etc.

Sameer also served as a technical consultant for Middle East Regional Monitoring Agency for the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) (2013-2024),
Ministry of Transport and Telecommunication, Kingdom of Bahrain (2015-2024)
and Saab Singapore (2022-2024)

His contributions to academia extend to organizational responsibilities, such as being an organizing co-chair for the 28th Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Canberra, Australia, in 2016, 11th International Conference on Research in Air Transportation (ICRAT), Singapore 2024 and serving as a conference session chair/member PC for various prestigious events.

Beyond his professional endeavors, Sameer has a passion for general aviation flying, fishing, and mountain hiking.

Artificial Intelligence methods for Air Traffic Management and Airport Operations Machine Learning Swarm Intelligence and Ant Colony Optimization Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Computation Multi Objective Optimization

 
  • Programme for ATMRI's 2nd Extended Term (NTU's Funding)
  • Operating costs for ATMRI's 2nd Extended Term (NTU's funding)
  • ATMRI Programmes (2nd Extended Term)
  • A Top-Of-Descent Prediction Model for Optimal Continuous Descent Operation and its Integration in the AIR-LAB Ecosystem
  • Future Airspace Architecture Fostering Human-AI Hybrid Automation to Cater to Future Air Traffic Demand
  • Operating costs of ATMRI (2nd Extended Term)
  • Human-AI Hybrid Toolkits
  • Future Airspace Architecture subsystems
  • Artificial Intelligence for Air Traffic Management
Courses Taught
MA7932 Air Transportation Systems
MA0218 Intro to Data Science & Artificial Intl.
MA4880 Airport Operations and Systems
MA4881 Air Traffic Management
MA6932 Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control
MA1008 Introduction to Computational Thinking
MA2006 Engineering Mathematics
 
Supervision of PhD Students
Yash Guleria 2020 - Present Main Supervisor Data Driven Ground Delay Management under Weather and Traffic Uncertainties
Lam Jun Guang Andy 2019 - Present Main Supervisor Machine learning for airport management and tower control
Lim Zhi Jun 2019 - Present Main Supervisor A Multi-Agent Approach for Extended Arrival Manager in Fragmented Airspace using Machine Learning Methods
Ky Gregoire Arthur 2021 - Present Co-Supervisor Virtual Centralized Air Traffic Flow Management
Nguyen Yen Duy 2020 - Present Co-Supervisor Air Traffic Flow Management
Thai Van Phat 2019 - 2023 Main Supervisor Detection, tracking and classification of small flying objects in wide-area (Graduated)
Zeng Yixi 2019 - 2022 Co- Supervisor Machine learning for hybrid AI-Human Control-Automation (Graduated)
Hasnain Ali 2018 - 2022 Main Supervisor Machine Learning Algorithms for Airport Surface Movement Optimization (Graduated)
Wai Lun Cheung 2015 - 2021 Co-Supervisor Optimizing arrival and departure management coupled with surface management and runway optimization techniques (Graduated)
Chunyao Ma 2018 - 2023 Main Supervisor Machine Algorithms for Airspace Safety and Traffic Flow Management (Graduated)