Hi, I’m Banafsheh. I am a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Central Florida, where I will join the LUQI Group (Laboratory for Uncertainty Quantification and Inference), advised by Ali Siahkoohi, starting August 2026. I hold a B.S. in Physics from Isfahan University of Technology and an M.S. in Computer Science from West Virginia University.

My research spans biometric security, generative models, healthcare AI, and uncertainty-aware intelligent systems. See the Research section below for details.

I have published in venues such as IJCB, EMBC, ECCV Workshop, and SVCC. I also serve as a reviewer for conferences and journals in signal processing, biometrics, and machine learning.

News

  • [2026/08]Started Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Central Florida, joining the LUQI Group.
  • [2026/05]Accepted the AI for All Doctoral Fellowship from the UCF Institute of Artificial Intelligence (IAI).
  • [2025/09]rECG: A Guided Diffusion Framework for Remote Electrocardiography Reconstruction from Facial Video accepted to IEEE IJCB 2025.
  • [2025/08]Started as Research Assistant in Computer Science at the University of South Florida.
  • [2025/06]GRU-AUNet: A Domain Adaptation Framework for Contactless Fingerprint Presentation Attack Detection accepted to the Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Conference (SVCC); received Best Paper Award.
  • [2025/03]Completed M.S. in Computer Science at West Virginia University; thesis: Deep Learning-Driven Biometric Security: Advancing Liveness Detection and Anti-Spoofing Techniques.
  • [2024/10]rPPG-SysDiAGAN: Systolic-Diastolic Feature Localization in rPPG Using GAN with Multi-Domain Discriminator accepted to the ECCV 2024 Workshop.
  • [2024/10]Ranked 2nd place in the Face Liveness Detection Competition (LivDet-Face 2024) at IEEE IJCB.
  • [2024/09]Contactless fingerprint biometric anti-spoofing: An unsupervised deep learning approach accepted to IEEE IJCB 2024.
  • [2024/07]Advancements in Continuous Glucose Monitoring: Integrating Deep Learning and ECG Signal accepted to IEEE EMBC 2024.
  • [2023/09]Ranked 2nd place in the LivDet 2023 Noncontact Fingerprint Competition at IEEE IJCB.
  • [2023/09]A universal anti-spoofing approach for contactless fingerprint biometric systems accepted to IEEE IJCB 2023.

Research

Biometric Security & Presentation Attack Detection

Liveness detection and anti-spoofing for contactless fingerprint and face biometrics.

More details

I develop robust methods for presentation attack detection (PAD) and liveness detection in contactless biometric systems, with emphasis on generalization to unseen attacks and domain shifts. My work includes GRU-AUNet, a domain-adaptation framework for contactless fingerprint presentation attack detection, as well as a universal anti-spoofing approach and an unsupervised deep learning method for contactless fingerprint biometric systems. I have also built competition-grade liveness detectors that ranked 2nd in the LivDet 2023 Noncontact Fingerprint and LivDet-Face 2024 challenges at IEEE IJCB. This line of work is further developed in my M.S. thesis, Deep Learning-Driven Biometric Security.

Generative Models & Remote Physiological Sensing

Generative models for contactless ECG/rPPG sensing from facial video.

More details

I apply deep generative models to camera-based vital sign estimation and cardiovascular feature analysis from video. In rECG, I proposed a guided diffusion framework (GEDM) to reconstruct ECG signals from facial video for contactless cardiac monitoring. In rPPG-SysDiAGAN, I proposed a GAN with a multi-domain discriminator to localize systolic and diastolic features in rPPG waveforms, improving interpretability and accuracy in contactless vital sign monitoring.

AI for Healthcare & Biosignals

Machine learning for physiological signals and continuous health monitoring.

More details

I integrate machine learning with physiological signals for continuous health monitoring and clinical applications. In Advancements in Continuous Glucose Monitoring: Integrating Deep Learning and ECG Signal, I study how ECG-based deep learning combined with CGM data can enable non-invasive, multimodal approaches to diabetes management and physiological monitoring.

Publications

rECG overview
rECG: A Guided Diffusion Framework for Remote Electrocardiography Reconstruction from Facial Video
B. Adami, N. Karimian, J. Dawson
IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), 2025
GRU-AUNet overview
GRU-AUNet: A Domain Adaptation Framework for Contactless Fingerprint Presentation Attack Detection
B. Adami, N. Karimian
Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Conference (SVCC), 2025
Thesis overview
rPPG-SysDiAGAN overview
Contactless anti-spoofing overview
Contactless fingerprint biometric anti-spoofing: An unsupervised deep learning approach
B. Adami, N. Karimian
IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), 2024
LivDet-Face 2024 overview
Face Liveness Detection Competition (LivDet-Face) 2024
L. Igene et al.
IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), 2024
CGM EMBC overview
Advancements in Continuous Glucose Monitoring: Integrating Deep Learning and ECG Signal
B. Adami, N. Karimian
IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC), 2024
Universal anti-spoofing overview
A universal anti-spoofing approach for contactless fingerprint biometric systems
B. Adami, S. Tehranipoor, N. Nasrabadi, N. Karimian
IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), 2023
LivDet 2023 overview

Experience

Research Assistant

University of South Florida — Tampa, FL (August 2025–August 2026)

  • Developed rECG, a guided diffusion framework for reconstructing ECG signals from facial video (IEEE IJCB 2025).

Graduate Research Assistant

West Virginia University — Morgantown, WV (August 2022–March 2025)

  • Designed and trained deep learning models in Python and PyTorch for biometrics, presentation attack detection, generative modeling, and healthcare applications.
  • Built ML pipelines for preprocessing, training, validation, and benchmarking; co-authored publications at IEEE IJCB, IEEE EMBC, ECCV Workshop, and SVCC.

Education

  • Ph.D. in Computer Science — University of Central Florida (August 2026–Present); LUQI Group
  • M.S. in Computer Science — West Virginia University (August 2022–March 2025)
  • B.S. in Physics — Isfahan University of Technology

Talks

Deep Learning-Driven Biometric Security

Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Conference (SVCC), 2025

M.S. Thesis Defense — Deep Learning-Driven Biometric Security

West Virginia University, March 2025

Honors & Awards

  • AI for All Doctoral Fellowship — University of Central Florida, IAI, 2026
  • Best Paper Award — Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Conference (SVCC), 2025
  • 2nd Place — LivDet Challenge (Video & Image), IEEE IJCB, 2024
  • 2nd Place — LivDet Challenge (Contactless Fingerprint), IEEE IJCB, 2023

Academic Service

Conference Reviewer

  • IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP)
  • IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP)

Journal Reviewer

  • IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS)
  • IEEE Transactions on Biometrics, Behavior, and Identity Science (TBIOM)
  • IEEE Access
  • Neurocomputing, Elsevier