Dr Ahmed Mahdee Salih

I received BSc in Statistics and Informatics from University of Mosul in 2007. In 2016, I received MSc. degree in Bioinformatics from Leicester University, United Kingdom through HCDP program which financially supported by Kurdistan region government. In 2019, I was granted a position to study PhD in computer science at University of Verona, Italy through the INVITE program co-financed by the European Union within the Horizon 2020 Programme and by the Regione del Veneto

My research interests are biological age estimation using machine learning methods and biological data, explainable artificial intelligence especially in healthcare and biology domains and Mendelian Randomization to assess causal association between an exposures and outcome(s)

1. Salih, A.M., Galazzo, I.B., Gkontra, P., Rauseo, E., Lee, A.M., Lekadir, K., Radeva, P., Petersen, S.E. and Menegaz, G., 2024. A review of evaluation approaches for explainable AI with applications in cardiology. Artificial Intelligence Review, 57(9), p.240.
2. Salih, A. M., Galazzo, I. B., Raisi-Estabragh, Z., Petersen, S. E., Menegaz, G., & Radeva, P. (2024). Characterizing the contribution of dependent features in XAI methods. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
3. Condurache, Dorina-Gabriela, Stefania D’Angelo, Ahmed M. Salih, Liliana Szabo, Celeste McCracken, Adil Mahmood, Elizabeth M. Curtis et al. "Bone health, cardiovascular disease and imaging outcomes in UK biobank: a causal analysis." JBMR Plus (2024): ziae058.
4. Raisi-Estabragh Z, Szabo L, McCracken C, Bülow R, Aquaro GD, Andre F, Le TT, Suchá D, Condurache DG, Salih AM, Chadalavada S. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance reference ranges from the Healthy Hearts Consortium. JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging. 2024 Apr 10.
5. Raisi-Estabragh Z, Szabo L, Schuermans A, Salih AM, Chin CW, Vágó H, Altmann A, Ng FS, Garg P, Pavanello S, Marwick TH. Noninvasive Techniques for Tracking Biological Aging of the Cardiovascular System: JACC Family Series. JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging. 2024 Apr 8.
6. Salih, Ahmed M., Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Gloria Menegaz, and André Altmann. "Leukocyte Telomere Length and Cardiac Structure and Function: A Mendelian Randomization Study." Journal of the American Heart Association 13, no. 3 (2024): e032708.
7. Salih, Ahmed, Maddalena Ardissino, Aaron Z. Wagen, Andrew Bard, Liliana Szabo, Mina Ryten, Steffen E. Petersen, André Altmann, and Zahra Raisi‐Estabragh. "Genome‐Wide Association Study of Pericardial Fat Area in 28 161 UK Biobank Participants." Journal of the American Heart Association 12, no. 21 (2023): e030661.
8. Szabo, Liliana, Ahmed Salih, Esmeralda Ruiz Pujadas, Andrew Bard, Celeste McCracken, Maddalena Ardissino, Charalambos Antoniades et al. "Radiomics of pericardial fat: a new frontier in heart failure discrimination and prediction." European Radiology (2023): 1-14.
9. Rauseo, Elisa, Ahmed Salih, Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, Nay Aung, Neha Khanderia, Gregory G. Slabaugh, Charles R. Marshall et al. "Ischemic heart disease and vascular risk factors are associated with accelerated brain aging." JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging (2023).
10. Raisi-Estabragh, Zahra, Jackie Cooper, Ahmed Salih, Betty Raman, Aaron Mark Lee, Stefan Neubauer, Nicholas C. Harvey, and Steffen E. Petersen. "Cardiovascular disease and mortality sequelae of COVID-19 in the UK Biobank." Heart 109, no. 2 (2023): 119-126.
11. Salih, Ahmed, Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Polyxeni Gkontra, Aaron Mark Lee, Karim Lekadir, Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, and Steffen E. Petersen. "Explainable Artificial Intelligence and Cardiac Imaging: Toward More Interpretable Models." Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging 16, no. 4 (2023): e014519.
12. Salih, Ahmed, Thomas Nichols, Liliana Szabo, Steffen E. Petersen, and Zahra Raisi-Estabragh. "Conceptual Overview of Biological Age Estimation." Aging and Disease 14, no. 3 (2023): 583.
13. Salih, Ahmed M., Esmeralda Ruiz Pujadas, Víctor M. Campello, Celeste McCracken, Nicholas C. Harvey, Stefan Neubauer, Karim Lekadir, Thomas E. Nichols, Steffen E. Petersen, and Zahra Raisi‐Estabragh. "Image‐Based Biological Heart Age Estimation Reveals Differential Aging Patterns Across Cardiac Chambers." Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (2023).
14. Galazzo, Ilaria Boscolo, Federica Cruciani, Lorenza Brusini, Ahmed Salih, Petia Radeva, Silvia Francesca Storti, and Gloria Menegaz. "Explainable artificial intelligence for magnetic resonance imaging aging brainprints: Grounds and challenges." IEEE Signal Processing Magazine 39, no. 2 (2022): 99-116.
15. Raisi-Estabragh, Zahra, Ahmed Salih, Polyxeni Gkontra, Angélica Atehortúa, Petia Radeva, Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Gloria Menegaz, Nicholas C. Harvey, Karim Lekadir, and Steffen E. Petersen. "Estimation of biological heart age using cardiovascular magnetic resonance radiomics." Scientific Reports 12, no. 1 (2022): 12805.
16. Salih, Ahmed, Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Federica Cruciani, Lorenza Brusini, and Petia Radeva. "Investigating explainable artificial intelligence for mri-based classification of dementia: a new stability criterion for explainable methods." In 2022 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), pp. 4003-4007. IEEE, 2022.
17. Salih, Ahmed, Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Steffen E. Petersen, Karim Lekadir, Petia Radeva, Gloria Menegaz, and André Altmann. "Telomere length is causally connected to brain MRI image derived phenotypes: A mendelian randomization study." Plos one 17, no. 11 (2022): e0277344.
18. Salih, Ahmed, Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, Elisa Rauseo, Polyxeni Gkontra, Steffen E. Petersen, Karim Lekadir, André Altmann, Petia Radeva, and Gloria Menegaz. "Brain age estimation at tract group level and its association with daily life measures, cardiac risk factors and genetic variants." Scientific Reports 11, no. 1 (2021): 20563.
19. Salih, Ahmed, Ilaria Boscolo Galazzo, Zahra Raisi-Estabragh, Steffen E. Petersen, Polyxeni Gkontra, Karim Lekadir, Gloria Menegaz, and Petia Radeva. "A new scheme for the assessment of the robustness of Explainable Methods Applied to Brain Age estimation." In 2021 IEEE 34th International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS), pp. 492-497. IEEE, 2021.

1. BSc in Statistics and Informatics
2. MSc in Bioinformatics
3. PhD in Computer Science