Dr Hammad Afzal

Dr. Hammad Afzal  joined University of Leicester, UK in Nov 2024. Before that he has served in University of Portsmouth UK as a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science.

Dr. Hammad Afzal holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, UK. He has previously served as a Research Fellow at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, University of Ireland, Galway. He also earned an MSc in Advanced Computing Sciences from the University of Manchester, where he received the Program Prize of the Year from the Department of Computation for achieving the highest marks and distinction.

His research focuses on machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and the application of AI in various domains such as smart healthcare and information security. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications in leading international journals and conferences.

His work has been supported by several competitive research grants, including a prominent project under the Artificial Intelligence for Global Health (AI4GH) initiative funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), titled “Advancing Maternal Health through AI-Powered Gestational Diabetes Prediction"

He plays an active role in the academic community, serving as Chair, Co-Chair, and Technical Program Committee member for various international conferences, including WETICE, ICMMI, ICOSST, and MedPRAI. He also serves as an Associate Editor for Human-Centric Computing and Information Sciences, a Q1-ranked journal indexed in Scopus and Web of Science.

Areas of Interest

Applications of AI and Data Science in Healthcare and Cyber Security

Selected Recent Grant

• AI-Based Risk Predictive Tool for Early Diagnosis And Treatments (Oct, 2023 – Mar, 2025) - Sponsored By: Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC) for AI for Global Health (AI4GH)

Editorial Services: 

Served as Chair, Co-Chair and a member of the Technical Program Committee for several conferences, e.g. WETICE, ICMMI, ICOSST, MedPRAI etc.

Served as a reviewer of over 30 reputed international journals including IEEE Communications Magazines, the Journal of Natural Language Engineering, Neural Computing and Applications, Cluster Computing, etc.

Apart from that, currently, he holds the position of Associate Editor for Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences. Previously served as a Guest Editor for special issues in Security and Communication Networks.

Selected Publications

• Zainab, Laraib, Hammad Afzal, Khawir Mahmood, and Omar Arif. "A light-weight deep learning framework for Low Light Image Enhancement." Neurocomputing 621 (2025): 129236.
• Daud, Muneeba, Hammad Afzal, and Khawir Mahmood. "Underwater image enhancement using lightweight vision transformer." Multimedia Tools and Applications 83, no. 31 (2024): 75603-75625.
• Munaf, Mubashir, Hammad Afzal, Khawir Mahmood, and Naima Iltaf. "Low resource summarization using pre-trained language models." ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing 23, no. 10 (2024): 1-19.
• Saeed, Ramsha, Hammad Afzal, Sadaf Abdul Rauf, and Naima Iltaf. "Detection of offensive language and its severity for low resource language." ACM Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing 22, no. 6 (2023): 1-27.
• Shahid, Waleed Bin, Baber Aslam, Haider Abbas, Hammad Afzal, and Saad Bin Khalid. "A deep learning assisted personalized deception system for countering web application attacks." Journal of Information Security and Applications 67 (2022): 103169.
• Shahid, Waleed Bin, Baber Aslam, Haider Abbas, Saad Bin Khalid, and Hammad Afzal. "An enhanced deep learning based framework for web attacks detection, mitigation and attacker profiling." Journal of Network and Computer Applications 198 (2022): 103270.
• Saeed, Ramsha, Hammad Afzal, Haider Abbas, and Maheen Fatima. "Enriching conventional ensemble learner with deep contextual semantics to detect fake news in Urdu." Transactions on Asian and Low-Resource Language Information Processing 21, no. 1 (2021): 1-19.
• Khan, Zafran, Naima Iltaf, Hammad Afzal, and Haider Abbas. "DST-HRS: A topic driven hybrid recommender system based on deep semantics." Computer Communications 156 (2020): 183-191.
• Ullah, Kaleem, Imran Rashid, Hammad Afzal, Mian Muhammad Waseem Iqbal, Yawar Abbas Bangash, and Haider Abbas. "SS7 vulnerabilities—a survey and implementation of machine learning vs rule based filtering for detection of SS7 network attacks." IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 22, no. 2 (2020): 1337-1371.
• Arif, Omar, Hammad Afzal, Haider Abbas, Muhammad Faisal Amjad, Jiafu Wan, and Raheel Nawaz. "Accelerated dynamic MRI using kernel-based low rank constraint." Journal of medical systems 43 (2019): 1-11.

Complete Publications Profile is available on Google Scholar

Currently supervising MSc students on projects in the domain of NLP and Computer Vision.

Previous supervised 3 PhD and over 60 MS students. Some notable research works are:

• Enhancing Dysarthria Diagnosis: Leveraging Deep Learning Techniques
• Mental Health Analysis through social media using Large Language Models
• Using Vision Transfers for Image Enhancement

https://codteem.com/hammadafzal/#supervision

 

[MA7022] - Data Mining and Neural Networks - 2026

[MA7442] -Modelling Data (MSc Data Science) - 2026-2025

[MA7443] Data Science Research Project - 2026-2025

[MA7444] Excel for Data Science - 2025

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Database Management Systems - 2024

*Data Mining - 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017,  2016, 2014

*Machine Learning - 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016

*Deep Learning - 2022

*Data Structures and Algorithms - 2023

*Computer Organization and Architecture - 2019, 2016, 2013

*Object Oriented Programming - 2023, 2019, 2018, 2014

*Software Quality Engineering - 2015

*Distributed Computing - 2014

*Advanced Databases - 2014

*Operating System - 2012, 2017

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Before Joining University of Leicester, UK

 

Selected Talks

• Keynote Talk: Transforming the Healthcare Industry: Role of AI
  Colloquium on AI-Based Interdisciplinary Research, Pak-UK Education Gateway;                      08/2023
• Keynote Talk: AI Based Creative Content Generation: Era of Generative AI
  IEEE International Conference on Communication Technologies, 2023;                                     03/2023
• Keynote Talk: Machine Learning and its Applications
  IEEE International Conference on Communication Technologies, 2021;                                      09/2021
• Training: Data Analytics Using Python (60 hrs)
  Institute of Chartered Accountants Pakistan                                                                                 02/2023
• Training: Diploma in Data Sciences (30 hrs)
  Professional Development Center, NUST                                                                                      11/2022
• Training: Diploma in Artificial Intelligence (96 hrs)
  Professional Development Center, NUST                                                                                      07/2022
• Keynote Talk: AI in Healthcare
  Seminar organized by National University of Medicine, Pakistan;                                                12/2023
• Invited Talk: Early diagnosis of GDM using AI
  Organized by PHC Global, Colombo Sri Lanka
  
  

• Member ACM | Senior Member IEEE | PEC Recognized Engr
• Peter Jones Prize of the Year 2005 (Equivalent to Gold Medal) in the Department of Informatics, University of Manchester, UK. 
• Lead Software Engg Curriculum (Pakistan Engg Council) (2021 - 2022)
• Invited Domain Expert: Fully funded by the University of Tokyo, Japan for BioHackathon 2010, 
• Best researcher of the Year at (NUST-MCS); 2017-2018
• 2 Times Rector’s Gold Medal for best FYP Projects at NUST Pakistan

PhD Computer Science
The University of Manchester, UK                                                                                

MSc Advanced Computing Science
The University of Manchester, UK                                                                                
Honour: Peter Jones Prize for highest score among all MSc student in the Department of Informatics

BEng Software Engineering
National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan                         

Post Doctoral Research Fellowship (Intern)
Insight Center of Data Analytics, University of Ireland, Galway.