UNSW researcher receives award recognising women in artificial intelligence

Flora Salim

Women in AI promotes gender-inclusive artificial intelligence that benefits society.

UNSW Engineering Professor Flora Salim has been honoured for her pioneering work in computing and machine learning by Women in AI, a global advocacy group for women in the artificial intelligence (AI) field.

The 2022 Women in AI Awards Australia and New Zealand recognised women across various industries committed to excellence in AI.

Finalists were judged on innovation, leadership and inspiring potential, global impact, and the ability of the AI solution to provide a social good for the community.

Prof. Salim was recognised for her AI achievements in the Defence and Intelligence award category. 

The award acknowledged her research in the cross-cutting areas of ubiquitous computing and machine learning, with a focus on efficient, fair, and explainable machine learning for multi-dimensional sensor data, towards enabling situational and behaviour intelligence for multiple applications.

“I am thrilled and honoured to receive this award. This highlights our efforts into advancing AI and machine learning techniques for sensor data,” Prof. Salim said.

“I would like to acknowledge my students, postdocs, collaborators, and mentors. I hope we can inspire more women to join us towards solving difficult AI problems that matter.”

Prof. Salim is the inaugural Cisco Chair in Digital Transport in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney and a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts, having recently moved from RMIT University’s School of Computing Technologies, Melbourne.

Her research on human-centred computing AI and machine learning for behaviour modelling with multimodal spatial-temporal data has received funding from numerous partners, resulting in more than 150 papers and three patents.

Research led by Prof. Salim with collaborators from Microsoft Research and RMIT University on task characterisation and automating task scheduling led to insights that influenced the research and development of several new Microsoft product features.

UNSW Dean of Engineering, Professor Stephen Foster congratulated Prof. Salim on receiving an award that promotes women in the AI sector.

“Artificial intelligence will reshape every corner of our lives in the coming years, so it’s pleasing to see brilliant women recognised for shaping the future of AI,” Prof. Foster said.

“I congratulate Prof. Salim for being on the forefront of AI today.”

Women in AI is a global not-for-profit network working towards empowering women and minorities to excel and be innovators in the AI and Data fields.

The awards were held at a gala dinner at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.