Vahid Akbari

Dr. Vahid Akbari is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Data Science/Artificial Intelligence at the University of Stirling, within the Computing Science and Mathematics Division. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics (Radar Remote Sensing/Data Analytics) from UiT-The Arctic University of Norway in 2013, followed by postdoctoral research at UiT, the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, and the University of Stirling. His expertise spans radar remote sensing, machine learning, and environmental monitoring, with a focus on InSAR for land subsidence and PolSAR for land cover classification. He holds visiting research experience at the University of Genoa and GFZ Potsdam.

Dr. Akbari’s research interests intersect AI4EO, big Earth data analytics, and advanced SAR techniques for environmental applications such as forestry, glaciology, and agriculture. He is a Council Member of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc), Senior Member of IEEE, and contributes to research groups like DAIS and SVIP. He has received the RSPSoc President’s Prize twice (2020, 2023) for best oral presentations.

His academic contributions include over 40 publications on topics like water hyacinth mapping, iceberg detection, and SAR-based change detection. He supervises projects on hedgerow mapping, vegetation analysis via drone imagery, and AI-driven brain tumor diagnosis from MRI data. He also leads activities in the SAGES AI & Earth Observation research theme and serves as Publication Chair for RSPSoc.