About

Abdi is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Derby, School of Computing, College of Science and Engineering. He actively contributes to the innovative group at the Data Science Research Centre, focusing on areas such as data science and artificial intelligence.

He previously held a position as a Researcher and Lecturer at the University of Twente, in the Netherlands and a post-doctoral position in the UTM Big Data Centre at the University of Technology Malaysia. He also served in a Research Assistant position in the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Malaya (UM).

He is a passionate advocate of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). His research focuses on developing intelligent systems capable of processing and understanding human language. He has published several papers in many areas of AI, NLP, and data mining. His PhD research was awarded two honourable Gold Medals from NIIDR 2015 and iidex 2016, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).

Teaching responsibilities

I am the module leader of the following modules:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Foundations of Computer and IT Systems
• Data management and Business intelligence
• Business Analytics

Previously, I have taught the following courses:

University of Twente, Netherlands

• Natural Language Processing and E-commerce
• Database Management Systems
• Structured Query Language (SQL)

University of Technology Malaysia

• Deep Learning for Natural Language Processing
• Machine learning and deep learning
• Text Pre-processing for NLP and Machine Learning

Project Supervisor

• PhD Project Supervisor
• Independent Scholarship Supervisor (MSc in Big Data Analytics and IT)
• Supervisor for Independent Studies

Professional interests

As a research member of the Data Science Research Centre (DSRC), I contribute to the development of real-world applications with industrial partners, using data science and artificial intelligence to create innovative solutions for industries. In particular, I am part of the Digital Society Research Cluster. This interdisciplinary group collaborates to address complex challenges within modern society by leveraging digital technologies and data science. We work across diverse fields, including natural language processing, AI for social justice and security, business applications of data science, transport, education, and climate change.

I am also part of the Education and AI research group.

I am keen to collaborate with scientists and domain experts from diverse fields to conduct interdisciplinary research in data science.

Research interests

My primary focus is on Natural Language Processing (NLP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and their application in solving real-world problems. Over the past few years, my research has concentrated on the following areas:

• NLP techniques and advancements: Document summarisation, sentiment analysis, Large Language Models (LLMs), plagiarism detection, question answering, and interactive NLP interfaces.
• Knowledge-driven NLP: Text relevance, knowledge representation, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for improving factual consistency in LLM outputs, and applying LLMs for knowledge extraction and understanding.
• Domain-specific applications of NLP and deep learning: Leveraging NLP and AI technologies in Education, Healthcare, and Transportation.

Funded research projects

• Comet-PS, Complexity Methods for Predictive Synchro modality
• H2020, the European H2020 program related to the circular economy transition
• ALEPS, Adaptive Learning Environment for Problem Solving
• Edu Feedback, an Automated system for analysing students’ feedback.
• Bolsover District Council and University of Derby collaboration
  
  A partnership focused on exploring digital transformation through feasibility studies for Machine Learning & Data Visualization, Chatbots, and Document Summarizing Tools to enhance productivity, reduce costs, and improve service delivery.
• University of Derby and Interpath Advisory collaboration
  
  A collaborative research project focused on applying AI and big data analytics to enhance decision-making, improve efficiency, and develop customer-centric solutions in the financial services industry.
• TeToMoCo, (Text-To-Model-To-Code) is a framework that leverages state-of-the-art NLP techniques to identify potential architecture elements from business requirements expressed in natural language.
• University of Technology Malaysia (UTM) & The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), Malaysia
  
  Project: Deep learning-based sentiment classification of evaluative text.

To find out more about what I do, take a look at my papers on Google Scholar.

Membership of professional bodies

Professional memberships and activities

• IEEE, membership
• UACEE, Universal Association of Computer and Electronics Engineers
• International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology

Member of editorial boards

• Heliyon (Information Science) journal 
• Problems of Information Technologies- Journal 
• Problems of Information Society – Journal 

Guest editor

• Applied Sciences journal (2023, 2024, 2025)
• Journal of Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (2023)

Session chair

• Session chair for an International Conference (RTIP2R 2023, UK)
• Session chair for an International Conference (NLDB 2023, UK)
• Session chair for an International Conference (MODELSWARD 2022, Portugal)

Program committee and reviewer (conference)

• Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) (2018, 2019, 2020, 2023)
• International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING) (2022, 2025)
• Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) (2019, 2020, 2022, 2024,2025)
• Joint LREC-COLING (2024)
• International Conference on Natural Language & Information Systems (2023, 2024)
• AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2021, 2022)
• AACL-IJCNLP (Asian Association for Computational Linguistics) (2022)
• Conference on Language Modeling (2024)
• IEEE AICT Conference (2017, 2018)

Other conferences

• Conference on Language Modeling, Canada, 2025
• IDSTA2024, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 2024
• 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, Denmark, 2018

Technical reviewer of the journal - ISI indexed

Regular reviewer for a range of prestigious journals in computer science, information science, artificial. intelligence, and applied computing

Qualifications

University of Derby (UoD), United Kingdom

• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Postgraduate Research Supervisor Certificate in Higher Education

University of Twente (UT), University Teaching Qualification, Netherlands

• Designing a lesson and a course
• Supervising students
• Practical teaching skills
• Testing and assessment
• Taste of teaching
• How to teach in an international classroom
• Quality assurance
• The policy of education and course evaluation/How to plan and organise your course
• Performance skills: how to lecture with impact
• With the brain in mind: how to stimulate the learning

Recent conferences

• Melhem, W., Abdi, A., & Meziane, F. (2024). Traffic Detection and Forecasting from Social Media Data Using a Deep Learning-Based Model, Linguistic Knowledge, Large Language Models, and Knowledge Graphs. Paper presented at the 16th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering, and Knowledge Management. Pages 235-242. DOI: 10.5220/0013066900003838.
• Daneshvar, B., Abdi, A., & Hosseini, S. M. (2023). FNMD: An Evaluation of Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques for Fake News Detection. Paper presented at the International Conference on Recent Trends in Image Processing and Pattern Recognition.
• Sedrakyan, G., Abdi, A., Van Den Berg, S. M., Veldkamp, B. P., & Van Hillegersberg, J. (2022). Text-To-Model (TeToMo) Transformation Framework to Support Requirements Analysis and Modeling. In MODELSWARD (pp. 129-136)
• Maitama, J. Z., Idris, N., Abdi, A., & Bimba, A. T. (2021, May). Aspect extraction in sentiment analysis based on emotional affect using supervised approach. In 2021 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data (ICAIBD) (pp. 372-376). IEEE
• Abdi, A., & Idris, N. (2015). Relevance Detection And Summarizing Strategies Identification Using Linguistic Measures. In National Invention, Innovation, Research & Design, NIIDR 2015
• Abdi, A., & Idris, N. (2014, December). Automated summarization assessment system: quality assessment without a reference summary. In The International Conference on Advances in Applied Science and Environmental Engineering-ASEE
• Abdi, A. (2012). Interactive English Natural Language Interface to Generate SQL Query. In 4th International Conference on Computer and Automation Engineering, ICCAE 2012. American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Experience in industry

I have worked in the industry for 9 years as an instructor and data processing expert. This experience provided me with the opportunity to translate knowledge gained in the laboratory into practical products and to enhance production processes by incorporating the latest technologies.

• Software Engineer (Data Processing Expert), Instructor - Social Security organisation.
• Software Engineer (Data Processing Expert), Instructor - Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

Responsibilities:

• Programming: Design and development.
• Teaching.
• Software product modelling using UML tools.
• System analysis and design.

International experience

• Researcher, Lecturer, University of Twente (UT), Netherlands.
• Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Technology Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia.
• Research Assistant, University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia.