Aseel Ali

Aseel Ali is a PhD student at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on augmenting heuristic Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to enhance nature-inspired algorithms for solving different complex combinatorial optimisation problems. She is integrating Human-Designed Heuristics, Genetic Programming and Constrained Generalized Hyper-Heuristic approaches, along with learning-based heuristic. She was awarded a full scholarship for her current study by the Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq (HCED), a highly competitive PhD scholarship that prioritising academic excellence and professional achievement.

Prior to her PhD, Aseel led and implemented several AI projects. These include the design and implementation of a novel ACO approach to detect and classify tumours on real-world MRI images. A mobile health system using an Arduino-based microcontroller aimed to reduce the sudden infant death. She also developed an Interactive map utilising novel ACO to detect landmines, a virtual school system (including timetables,  exams management, databases, and reporting tool), and an employee bonus and promotion program. 

In addition to the above, her experiences in collaborative and leadership skills have been developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, She led a multidisciplinary team to develop and deploy an online teaching and examination platform. As the head and coordinator, she managed the entire project lifecycle from creation to execution, including comprehensive testing and final deployment. Her role involved organising brainstorming sessions to define platform requirements, coordinating with the development team to ensure timely progress, and testing phases. Additionally, she conducted extensive training for managers, teachers, and students, ensuring they could effectively use the new system. This collaborative effort resulted in a successful platform launch that maintained academic continuity during a critical period.