By Dr. Randall W. Hill, Jr, Vice Dean, Viterbi School of Engineering, Omar B. Milligan Professor in Computer Science (Games and Interactive Media), Executive Director, ICT
Congratulations to Ali Jalal-Kamali on presenting his dissertation proposal Domain-Independent Agent-Based Behavioral Modeling of Events and Team Collaborations and moving to ABD (All But Dissertation) status, with a view to defending his PhD thesis later this year.
Jalal-Kamali is an experienced AI and ML researcher, focusing on multi-agent modeling, artificial intelligence, social simulation, psychological simulation and theory of mind. As Research Team Lead in the Social Simulation Lab, under the supervision of (interim) Research Lead, Dr. Nik Gurney, he’s responsible for recruiting and managing both Masters and undergraduate students to participate in (AI) research in agent-based psychological simulation projects, and collaborating with other research teams at ICT to deliver a multi-team-effort outcome as a full system, for a $3.5 million research project Patterns of Life.
He first came to ICT as a Programming Intern in 2012, and returned in 2014 as a Visiting Researcher, before joining the Research team on an official basis a year later, to build AI based simulation of social behaviors of people for the case of Patterns of Life (POL) in conflict scenarios.
In addition to his career in academia, Ali Jalal-Kamali is also a proven entrepreneur. As Founder/CEO of the tech start-up “Perfit” he pioneered utilizing 2D mobile phone-quality photographs to create high-end 3D models – thereby allowing accurate online clothes fittings, raising a seed round from venture capitalists, building partnerships with fashion brands, and recruited hybrid teams in both L.A. and the Bay Area.
Ali Jalal-Kamali received his Bachelor’s, Computer Science, from the University of Kerman, and his Master’s, Computer Science, at the University of Texas at El Paso. As a PhD candidate, his studies are very much cross-campus in nature: focusing mostly on Computer Science (USC Viterbi School of Engineering) but also taking a minor in Entrepreneurship (USC Marshall School of Business).
Publications [Google Scholar]:
- Predicting Team Performance from Communications in Simulated Search-and-Rescue
A Jalal-Kamali, N M Gurney, D V Pynadath. AAMAS (2025) - Autonomous Generation of Intelligent Patterns of Life
D V Pynadath, A Jalal-Kamali. I/ITSEC (2022) - Agent-based psychological simulation of geo-political actors using news articles
A Jalal-Kamali, D V Pynadath. IJCAI-ECAI (2018) - Toward a Bayesian network model of events in international relations
A Jalal-Kamali, D V Pynadath. SBP-BRiMS (2016)
Book Chapter:
- Artificial intelligence and social work
M Tambe, & E Rice (Eds.). Cambridge University Press (2018)
Software Systems:
- Predicting Team Performance from Communications
A Jalal-Kamali, N M Gurney, D V Pynadath (2024) - Behavioral Models of Geo-Political Actors Using NLP
A Jalal-Kamali, D V Pynadath (2018) - Bayesian network model of global events
A Jalal-Kamali, D V Pynadath (2016)
Award:
- Best Teaching Assistant, Viterbi School of Engineering (2017)
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