Dr Ajmal Shahbaz

Qualifications:

PhD in Electrical Engineering

Position:

Senior Research Fellow

Department:

College of Arts, Technology and EnvironmentSchool of Engineering

Telephone:

+441179656261

Email:

Ajmal.Shahbaz@uwe.ac.uk

Social media:

About me

I am a senior research fellow in computer vision and artificial intelligence at the Centre for Machine Vision, Bristol Robotics Lab. My area of expertise lies in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision. I did my PhD from the University of Ulsan, South Korea. In my free time, I like to travel, explore hidden gems, play cards, watch Netflix, and play cricket. 

I have outlined some of my projects below:

AWARE AI - AI LEAD (JAN. 2026- )
Funding: UKRI (£787k)
Partners: SRUC (UK)
• Developing Generative AI-inspired behavioural tokenisation methods for unsupervised emotional pattern discovery
• Played a key role in AI methodology design and technical work package development for the funded proposal

HOLIWELL PROJECT - AI LEAD (OCT 2025- )
Funding: EUP AH&W (€1,423k)
Partners: UCD (Ireland). BOKU (Austria), SRUC (UK)
• Designing a Vision Transformer-based Animal Emotion Encoder for robust visual behavioural representation learning
• Developed proof-of-concept AI framework that underpinned the successful international funding bid

INTELLIPIG PROJECT - AI LEAD (FEB. 2025- )
Funding: UKRI (£528k)
Partners: SRUC (UK) and Agsenze UK
• Developing multivariate AI models for simultaneous estimation of weight, body condition, and emotional state from visual data
• Architecting integrated computer vision and behavioural analytics frameworks for real-time welfare monitoring

FARMCARE PROJECT - AI LEAD (MAY 2024- AUG. 2025)
Funding: JPIMR EU & MRC UK (€1,376k)
Partners: University of Copenhagen (Denmark), SRUC (UK), UCD Ireland, Pork Columbia
• Led the AI workstream modelling trans-generational stress susceptibility using multimodal longitudinal data
• Advanced predictive modelling of long-term behavioural and physiological resilience in livestock systems

HOOFCOUNT PROJECT - AI LEAD (MAY 2023- 2024)
Funding: Innovate UK (£418k)
Partners: Hoofcount UK and Agri-Epicenter UK
• Designed a two-stage AI detection and classification pipeline for automated hoof lesion identification
• Improved lesion detection accuracy and supported real-world deployment within the PediVue system
• Contributed to project recognition with the 2025 Royal Innovation Award.

WATER PROJECT- AI LEAD (APR 2023- APR 2024)
Funding: UWE internally funded
Partners: Centre for Water, Communities, and Resilience, UWE
• Designed and deployed AI automation for water storage estimation from survey data
• Produced validated system improving efficiency and scalability of assessments

Area of expertise

• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Vision
• Machine Learning and Deep Learning
• Behavioural AI
• Precision Livestock Farming
• Multimodal Learning
• Vision Transformers
• Intelligent Surveillance Systems
• Image Processing
• Explainable and Applied AI

Publications

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