Applied Machine Learning Research Group

The Applied Machine Learning Research Group at Dublin City University (DCU) is dedicated to advancing intelligent, sustainable, and data-driven solutions across sectors such as smart transportation, smart grids, smart healthcare and cloud-based systems.

Led by Dr Mingming Liu, our team advances state-of-the-art research in AI-driven systems, combining applied optimization, systems engineering, and control with a strong emphasis on real-world impact. Our work focuses on federated learning, spatial-temporal graph neural networks, privacy-preserving intelligence, and user-centric solutions for decision-making under uncertainty. We collaborate globally to design and develop next-generation AI systems that drive sustainability and real-world impact for the benefit of society.

Maqsood Shah

Dr Maqsood Shah received his Ph.D. in Engineering from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, where he explored the viability of deep learning and AI architectures in the context of communications and digital signal processing. His research interests include deep learning and optimization with applications to smart mobility.

Hoa Xuan Nguyen

Dr Hoa Nguyen received his PhD in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering from Trinity College Dublin in 2022. He is now working as a postdoctoral researcher in Oxford University. His research interest include graph neural networks with applications to cloud systems.

Noureddine Boujnah

Dr Noureddine Boujnah received the Engineering Diploma degree in telecommunication and the Master of Science Diploma degree in image processing from the Higher School of Communication of Tunis, SUPCOM, Tunisia, in 2002 and 2005, respectively, and the Professional Master degree in wireless systems and related technologies under TOPMED project and the Ph.D. degree in satellite telecommunication from the Polytechnic of Turin-TLC, Italy, in 2006 and 2011 respectively.

Yingqi Gu

Dr Yingqi Gu received her Ph.D. degree in control engineering and decision science from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, in 2018. Her current research interests include AI and machine learning, control and optimization theories with applications to electric vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, and smart healthcare systems. Yingqi has now joined industry as a senior data scientist.

Sen Yan

Sen Yan received the bachelor’s degree in Internet of Things Engineering from Shandong University, in 2018 and the master’s degree in Computer Science – Intelligent Systems from Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, in 2020. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in intelligent transportation systems at the School of Electronic Engineering, DCU. Sen is working with Dr. Mingming Liu and Prof. Noel O’Connor in the areas of data-driven methods used in intelligent transportation systems, especially shared micromobility systems. He is also interested in image processing and machine learning.

Yue Ding

Yue Ding received her B.Sc. (Double Degree) in E-Commerce Engineering with Law from Queen Mary University of London and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2022, and her M.Sc. in Computer Science – Future Networked Systems from Trinity College Dublin in 2023. Her research focuses on optimizing smart transportation systems using reinforcement learning (RL) and other AI techniques to tackle complex, multi-objective problems in traffic management, route planning, and resource allocation. She is particularly interested in integrating explainable AI to ensure transparency and interpretability in real-world mobility solutions.

Francesco Chiumento

Francesco Chiumento is a PhD researcher at ML-Labs with a Master's degree in Bioengineering from Università di Padova. His research focuses on developing and evaluating a specialized Large Language Model (LLM) tailored for medical imaging diagnostics, addressing the current gap in LLMs’ ability to process and interpret complex visual data.

Chinmaya Kaundanya

Chinmaya Kaundanya is a PhD researcher under joint supervision of Prof Suzanne Little and Dr Mingming Liu at DCU. His PhD is funded by the Insight Center and an Irish AI/Micromobility Company Luna Systems. His research focuses on implementing Computer Vision Deep Neural Network model compression techniques and studying the challenges of deploying them on low-spec hardware platforms, especially for Micromobility applications.

Zhongyang Li

Zhongyang is a PhD researcher under joint supervision of Dr Xiaojun Wang and Dr Mingming Liu at DCU. He received his Bchelor degree in Communication Engineering from Communication University of China in 2024. His research interests include machine learning and its application to modern communication systems.

Harmonia Wang

Harmonia is a research assistant working at DCU. She received her Master's degree in Trinity College Dublin and her Bachelor degree in Harbin Institute of Technology. Her research interests including machine learning with applications to air quality modelling and forecasting.

Ming Yu

Ming is a research assistant working at the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at DCU. She holds a First-Class Honours bachelor’s degree in Data Science and a First-Class Honours master’s degree in Computer Science, both from DCU, Ireland. Her research focuses on DevOps and machine learning applications in cloud computing. As a certified Cloud Practitioner, she possesses expertise in cloud network troubleshooting, Linux, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) operations.

Kevin O'Shea

Kevin received his MSc degree from the Technological University of the Shannon, Ireland, in 2023 and works as a Research Assistant for the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics. His research interests include graph neural networks, large language models and generative adversarial networks, particularly in the area of music, audio and cloud computing.

Conor McCarthy

Connor received his BEng degree with first-class honours in Electronic and Computer Engineering from DCU in 2024. He is currently working as a Research Assistant at DCU. His research interests include traffic modelling, simulation, data analytics and app development.

Mohamed Allam

Mohamed received his Master's degree in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2023 and his Bachelor's degree in Computer engineering from Politecnico di Tornino in 2020. His research interests include machine learning and cloud observability.

Xianjuan Chen

Xianjuan received her master’s degree with first-class honours in Computing, Data Analytics, from DCU in 2024. Her research interests include machine learning and data analysis for applications in smart energy and cloud computing. She is dedicated to leveraging data-driven solutions to solve real-world challenges. Throughout her career, she has actively contributed to research projects and technical workshops, gaining hands-on experience in deploying machine learning to address practical problems.

Hongyuan Fang

Hongyuan received his Master's degree in Image Processing from DCU, Dublin, Ireland, in 2022. His research focuses on explainable anomaly detection in multivariate time series using deep learning techniques. His primary research interests include machine learning, graph neural networks, data-driven modeling, and computer vision. His work is particularly centered around the application of these technologies in intelligent transportation systems.

Shaoshu Zhu

Shaoshu received his Master's degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin in 2021, and his Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Technology from Hunan University in 2020. He is currently a PhD student working at UCD and was a research assistant working on the industry project funded by Huawei Ireland research centre. His research interests include machine learning, distributed systems and cloud observability.

Hongde Wu

Hongde received his B.Eng degree in Biomedical Engineering with an outstanding graduate from Beijing Institute of Technology in 2017 and received his M.Eng degree (research degree), under the supervision of Dr. Mingming Liu, from DCU in 2022. Currently, he works as a researcher in 2012 Lab at Huawei. His interests are deep learning, graph neural network and smart transportation.

Jifeng Zhu

Jifeng Zhu was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China. He received the B.S. degree from the School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2012, and the M.S. degree from the School of Information Engineering, China Jiliang University in 2021. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the School of Electronics and Information, Hangzhou Dianzi University. His research interests include acoustic signal recognition, sonar image denoising, image segmentation, object detection and saliency detection algorithms. He was a visiting PhD scholar in our group, supported by CSC funding.