S. Mostafa Rahimi Azghadi graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering (majoring in hardware) with the first class rank in 2006 and obtained his Master of Engineering in Computer Architecture with first class honours and commended thesis, from Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), Tehran, Iran, in 2009. In 2010, he was awarded an Australian International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and the Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) to pursue his PhD in the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, The University of Adelaide. In 2014 he completed his PhD with Dean's commendation for doctoral thesis excellence with a thesis entitled "Neuromorphic VLSI Designs for Spike Timing and Rate-based Synaptic Plasticity with Application in Pattern Classification" earning the Doctoral Research Medal, as well as the Adelaide University Alumni Medal, which is awarded to only one alumnus annually. In 2012 and 2013, he was a visiting PhD student in the Neuromorphic Cognitive System group, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland, hosted by Prof. Giacomo Indiveri.  

From 2014 to 2015, Dr Rahimi was a postdoctoral fellow in a joint industry-university project between The University of Adelaide and Australian Semiconductor Technology Company (ASTC), working in the area of smart sensors for biomedical applications. From 2015 to 2016, Mostafa was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sydney School of Electrical and Information Engineering, where he researched in the area of VLSI design and VLSI interfaces for nanoscale sensors. In 2016, Dr Rahimi joined JCU as a continuing lecturer (assistant professor), where he is currently involved in teaching and research in the areas of neural-inspired computing, embedded system designs, hardware acceleration of machine learning algorithms, memristive computing, and nanoelectronics.  

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PhD Scholarship Opportunities

I am always looking for talented and self-motivated students who would like to join my group. Students seeking a scholarship should initially contact me to discuss their proposed research project or to be given possible research ideas for a PhD scholarship application. 

Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarships and James Cook University Postgraduate Scholarships are competitive scholarships open to domestic and international research applicants. More information on these scholarships and the application deadlines/requirements are outlined at Postgraduate Research Scholarships. Application deadlines for JCU scholarships are usually Late September. 

China Scholarship Council (CSC) scholarship also offers funding for Chinese students who would like to study a PhD in Australia. Furthermore, PhD students currently studying in China can apply for a CSC visiting PhD scholarship. Please contact me directly if interested. 

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Postdoctoral Fellowships Opportunities

I am highly interested to host postdoctoral fellows in my group to collaborate with our research team and to conduct high-quality and impactful research. Interested applicants should contact me to discuss their research proposal and after approval can apply for a short-term postdoctoral research fellowship. 

Teaching

• CC2511: Embedded Systems Design (Level 2; TSV)
• CC3501: Computer Interfacing and Control (Level 3; TSV)
• EG1002: Computing and Sensors (Level 1; TSV)

Interests

Professional

• Senior Member of IEEE
• IEEE Northern Australia Section Treasurer
• Founding chair of IEEE NA Young Professional Group.

Research

• Neuromorphic Engineering, Nanoelectronics, Embedded Systems, Hardware Acceleration of Machine Learning Algorithms

Teaching

• I teach three hands-on engineering subjects ranging from first-year programming to third-year embedded system design, in Townsville. My main teaching philosophy is to connect theory with practice. In addition, I put a strong emphasis on hands-on and project-based learning, where the students learn by doing. Furthermore, in my lectures, I always give my students examples of where and how the theoretical materials they study is applied in their everyday lives and the many electronic systems around them. This has shown to significantly increase student’s engagement in the lectures.

Experience

• 2019 to present - Senior Lecturer, James Cook University (Townsville, Australia)
• 2018 to present - Associate Editor, Frontiers in Neuroscience - Neuromorphic Engineering
• 2017 to present - Associate Editor, IEEE ACCESS Journal
• 2016 to 2018 - Lecturer, James Cook University (Townsville, Australia)
• 2015 to 2016 - Postdoctoral Research Associate, The University of Sydney (Sydney, Australia)
• 2014 to 2015 - Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Adelaide (Adelaide, Australia)
• 2014 to 2015 - Verification Engineer, ASTC Australian Semiconductor Technology Company (Adelaide, Australia)
• 2012 to 2014 - PhD Student, Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland)
• 2010 to 2014 - PhD Student, The University of Adelaide (Adelaide, Australia)

Research Disciplines

• Electrical and Electronic Engineering (0906)
• Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing (0801)
• Computer Hardware (1006)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Expanding Knowledge (9701)
• Machinery and Equipment (8614)

Awards

• 2020 - Supervisor of the only Australian PhD project receiving a 2020 IBM PhD Fellowship
• 2019 - Supervisor of the only Australian university team selected as a regional finalist in the 2019 InnovateFPGA Global Design Contest
• 2019 - 2019 Fresh Science Queensland Finalist
• 2018 - Rising Stars Research Award
• 2017 - Supervisor of the best Engineering Thesis at JCU that received the Engineers Australia CN Barton Medal
• 2017 - QLD Young Tall Poppy Science Award
• 2015 - Australian Nanotechnology Network Young Science Ambassador Award
• 2015 - Gertrude Rohan Memorial Medal and Prize
• 2015 - Adelaide Postgraduate Alumni University Medal
• 2015 - South Australia Science Excellence Awards
• 2014 - University Doctoral Research Medal
• 2014 - Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence
• 2013 - IEEE SA Section Student Travel Award
• 2013 - Simon Rockliff Scholarship
• 2013 - Doreen McCarthy Research Bursary
• 2012 - The IEEE Computational Intelligence Society travel grant
• 2012 - Brain Corporation Travel Fellowships for Spiking Neural Networks
• 2012 - Research Abroad Scholarship, The University of Adelaide, Australia
• 2011 - Japanese Neural Network Society Travel Award
• 2010 - IPRS (International Postgraduate Research Scholarships) by Australian government

Fellowships

• 2016 - Endeavour Fellowship
• 2015 - Biomimetic and Neurotechnology Fellowship
• 2012 - DR Stranks Fellowship

Memberships

• 2017 - Australian Brain Alliance EMCR Brain Science Network Steering Committee member

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Almasi M, Karimi G, Ranjbar M and Rahimi Azghadi M (2020) New analogue stop-learning control module using astrocyte for neuromorphic learning. IET Circuits, Devices & Systems, 14 (1), pp. 100-106, DOI:10.1049/iet-cds.2019.0297.
• Asgari H, Mazloom-Nezhad Maybodi B, Payvand M and Rahimi Azghadi M (in press) Low-energy and fast spiking neural network for context-dependent learning on FPGA. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Part 2: express briefs, , DOI:10.1109/TCSII.2020.2968588.
• Rahimi Azghadi M, Chen Y, Eshraghian J, Chen J, Lin C, Amirsoleimani A, Mehonic A, Kenyon A, Fowler B, Lee J and Chang Y (in press) CMOS and memristive hardware for neuromorphic computing. Advanced Intelligent Systems, , DOI:10.1002/aisy.201900189.
• Hashemi S, Rahimi Azghadi M and Navi K (2019) Design and Analysis of Efficient QCA Reversible Adders. The Journal of Supercomputing, 75, pp. 2106-2125, DOI:10.1007/s11227-018-2683-0.
• Heidarpur M, Ahmadi A, Ahmadi M and Rahimi Azghadi M (2019) CORDIC-SNN: on-FPGA STDP learning with Izhikevich neurons. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 66 (7), pp. 2651-2661, DOI:10.1109/TCSI.2019.2899356.
• Lammie C, Olsen A, Carrick T and Rahimi Azghadi M (2019) Low-power and high-speed deep FPGA inference engines for weed classification at the edge. IEEE Access, 7, pp. 51171-51184, DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2911709.
• Lammie C, Hamilton T, van Schaik A and Rahimi Azghadi M (2019) Efficient FPGA implementations of pair and triplet-based STDP for neuromorphic architectures. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, 66 (4), pp. 1558-1570, DOI:10.1109/TCSI.2018.2881753.
• Olsen A, Konovalov D, Philippa B, Ridd P, Wood J, Johns J, Banks W, Girgenti B, Kenny O, Whinney J, Calvert B, Rahimi Azghadi M and White R (2019) DeepWeeds: a multiclass weed species image dataset for deep learning. Scientific Reports, 9, Article: 2058, DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-38343-3.

Conference Papers

• Calvert B, Olsen A, Philippa B and Rahimi Azghadi M (2019) Autoweed: detecting Harrisia cactus in the Goondiwindi region for selective spot-spraying. https://www.wsq.org.au/downloads/2019-pest-animal-and-weed-symposium-proceedings/. In: PAWS 2019: 1st Queensland Pest Animal and Weed Symposium, 20-23 May 2019, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
• Lammie C, Krestinskaya O, James A and Rahimi Azghadi M (2019) Variation-aware binarized memristive networks. Proceedings of the 26th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems. In: 2019 ICECS: 26th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 27-29 November 2019, Genoa, Italy
• Lammie C and Azghadi M (2019) Stochastic computing for low-power and high-speed deep learning on FPGA. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems. In: ISCAS 2019: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 26-29 May 2019, Sapporo, Japan
• Lammie C, Xiang W and Azghadi M (2019) Accelerating deterministic and stochastic binarized neural networks on FPGAS using OpenCL. Procedings of the International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems. In: MWSCAS 2019: IEEE 62nd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 4-7 August 2019, Dallas, TX, USA

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 49+ research outputs authored by Dr Mostafa Rahimi Azghadi from 2007 onwards.

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• Hardware Implementation of Limited-Precision Machine-Learning Algorithms for Edge Computing (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Developing High-Performance Deep Learning Tools for Marine Habitat Monitoring (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Internet of underwater things and big marine data analytics (PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Design and Development of a Smart Automated Machine Learning Tool for User Assistance. (PhD , Primary Advisor)

Completed

• Improving the accuracy of weed species detection for robotic weed control in complex real-time environments (2020, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Fabrication and characterization of antibacterial surfaces derived from geranium essential oil using PECVD (2019, PhD , Secondary Advisor)

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.