cv

Curriculum Vitae of Mohammad Hadi Niknam. Live Overleaf version is available here.

General Information

Full Name Mohammad Hadi Niknam
Affiliation Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic)
Department Computer Science
Email niknam@aut.ac.ir
Phone +98-9918017161
Website nicknam.tech
Online CV
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Education

  • 2023 - 2027 (Feb.)

    Tehran, Iran

    Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
    Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic)
    • 220 ECTS · 7th Semester · CGPA: 16.60 / 20
    • BSc Thesis: HAS-RL: Human-Adaptive Safe Reinforcement Learning for Clinician-Configured Force Safety in Robotic Ultrasound Spinal Scanning (Post · Paper PDF · AUT Thesis PDF · Slides)
  • 2016 - 2022

    Tehran, Iran

    High School Diploma in Mathematics & Physics
    Alborz High School (Previously American School)
    • CGPA: 19.56 / 20

Research Interests

  • Reinforcement Learning
    • RL Theory
    • LLM Alignment & Preference Modeling
    • Decision Making Under Uncertainty
    • Multi-Agent RL
  • Medical Robotics
    • Robot Learning
    • Human-Adaptive Control
    • Ultrasound-Guided Robotics
  • Medical AI
    • Medical Imaging & Image Super-Resolution
    • Foundation Models for Healthcare
    • Clinically Robust AI

Key Projects & Research

  • 2025 - Present

    Toronto, Canada (Remote)

    Research Project Coordinator & Research Assistant
    Dr. Javad Alirezaie Lab, Toronto Metropolitan University
    • Research Project Coordinator (September 2025 - Present):
      • Led a 3-member undergraduate research team on efficient image super-resolution, coordinating paper discussions, experimental milestones, task allocation, and research deliverables.
      • QuantaSR: Efficient Image Super-Resolution through Quantization Error Optimization in Low-Precision Neural Networks (Under Review).
      • MLTSR: Efficient Super Resolution Using Multi-Task Learning with Conflict-Aware Optimization (In Preparation).
    • Research Assistant (July 2025 - September 2026):
      • Designed RL-based neural architecture search over lightweight super-resolution blocks.
      • SRIQL: Implicit Q Learning for Ultralight-weight Image Super Resolution (ICASSP / IEEE Conference) — SOTA on DIV2K / Set14 / Set5 / Urban100 by 1 dB PSNR.
      • URLSR: Efficient Image Super Resolution Network using Neural Operations and Reinforcement Learning (Under Review, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making).
  • 2025 - Present

    Tehran, Iran

    Research Assistant
    Shafa Yahyaian Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences
    • Publications / Manuscripts:
      • Fairness-Aware Operating-Room Sequencing for Acute Orthopaedic Trauma: A Retrospective Capacity-Calibrated Stress Test Using MOVER (Under Review, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making).
      • Imaging-Based Artificial Intelligence for Osteonecrosis of the Jaw: A Systematic Review of Current Evidence and Clinical Translation Challenges (Under Review).
    • Ongoing Research Proposals:
      • BoneRADS framework automation with AI using classical computer vision.
      • Fine-tuning MedSAM on the BTXRD dataset.
      • VQA benchmark development for the BTXRD dataset.
  • 2025 - Present

    Munich, Germany (Remote)

    Research Assistant
    Computer Aided Medical Procedures (CAMP), Technical University of Munich (TUM)
    • Collaborating with Dr. Nassir Navab on ultrasound foundation models: 'A Review on Ultrasound Foundation Models'.
  • 2025 - 2026

    Remote

    Research Assistant
    Aminian Research Lab
    • Collaborating with Dr. Gholamali Aminian.
    • Arena Human Preference 90K: Engineered Features and Correctness Annotations — Engineered interpretable structural and linguistic features across 90,000 battle conversations and curated independent human correctness annotations for LLM evaluation and preference modeling (Released on Hugging Face).
  • 2026 - Present
    Independent Researcher
    Independent Research in Reinforcement Learning
    • TailRL Extension (RLC 2026): Designing an adaptive tail-weighting scheme to dynamically scale policy gradients based on trajectory return percentiles rather than heuristic top-k cutoffs.

Work Experience

  • 2026 (Mar - Jun)

    Tehran, Iran

    AI Research Engineer (Intern)
    ResanAI
    • Completed an AI engineering internship focused on graph algorithms and Graph Neural Networks (GCN, GraphSAGE, EdgeConv).
    • Investigated geometric algorithms and graph-based architectures in 3D point cloud literature.
    • Studied PyG (PyTorch Geometric) library internals for high-performance geometric deep learning.

Honors & Awards

  • 2022
    • Gold Medalist in Iran National Economics Olympiad
    • Top 1% rank in the Iran National University Entrance Exam (Konkur) competing against over 100,000 students nationwide

Selected Courses

  • Partial Differential Equations (PDE): 18.5 / 20
  • Signals and Systems: 18.0 / 20
  • Deep Reinforcement Learning (Audited, 2025)
  • Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (Audited, 2026)

Languages

Persian Native Speaker
English Professional Proficiency — Official TOEFL iBT: 90 / 120 (Verified Score in Hand)
German Limited Working Proficiency (B1) — Goethe-Institut Teheran
French Limited Understanding (A2)
Arabic Basic Understanding

Professional References