Director: Bigdata Analytics and Management Laboratory


Farhana H. Zulkernine, PhD, PEng



Farhana Zulkernine is an Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the Cognitive Science program at the School of Computing at Queen's University. She is the Director of the BAM laboratory. She holds a Ph.D. degree from the School of Computing at Queen's University and is a member of Professional Engineers of Ontario. She has more than 15 years of international work experience in three continents in software design, analysis and research. BAM lab focuses on developing efficient multimodal big and streaming data ingestion, analytics, knowledge extraction and management infrastructure for real life applications in many areas such as Business, Law, Medical, and Autonomous Vehicles.




Current Students and Postdoctoral Fellows:


Hanady's visit    Amtul's graduation    BAM Lab picnic    Sazia at NIPS2022
Graduate Students
Name Period Topic
Drishti Sharma (MSc project) Jan 2023- Developing a dialogue system for a chat bot for medical triage system.
Jackson Cai(MSc) Jan 2023- Analysis of medical structured and unstructured data for disease analysis and prediction.
Zihan Zhang (MSc) Jan 2023- Analyzing radar point cloud data and video data for human activity recognition.
Elyas Rashno (PhD) Sep 2022- Multimodal streaming data management and analysis for Triage-bot.
Nafiz Sadman (MSc) Sep 2022- Security and authentication of user data for Triage-bot.
Vidhi Kokel (MEng) May 2022-Jan 2023 Analysis of medical structured and unstructured data for a study on Osteoarthritis funded by Pfizer
Yuhao Chen (PhD) Sep 2021- Using deep learning for knowledge extraction from unstructure text data.
Ruikang Luo (MSc) Sep 2021- Automatic caption generation using multimodal video and text data (co-supervised)
Ian Pepin (MSc) Sep 2021- Security and privacy for medical informatics on the cloud (co-supervised)
Jacqueline Chan (MSc) Sep 2021- Authentication and password based security
Sam Baranek (MSc) Sep 2021- Facial image analytics for identity verification and emotion recognition (co-supervised)
Haoran Qi (MS Project) Sep 2021- Human activity recognition using wearable sensors.
Vignesh Rao (MS Project) Sep 2021- Autonomous Vehicular Sensor Data Analytics (co-supervised)
Mojtaba Moattari (PhD) Sep 2020- Advancing machine cognition using multimodal asynchronous data stream processing and concept learning.
Ahmed Harby (PhD) Sep 2020- Distributed cloud-based knowledge graph architecture, management and querying.
Zili Lou (MS) Sep 2020- Email categorization and automatic email response composition.
Calen Irwin (MS) Sep 2020- Vehicular sensor data classification for anomaly detection.
Austin Carthy (MSc) Sep 2021- Detecting cyber threats in emails.
Donghao Qiao (PhD) Sep 2019- Pattern learning from video data for autonomous vehicles.
Sazia Mahfuz (PhD) Sep 2017- A smart data profiling framework

Undergraduate Students
Name Period Topic
Josh Otten 2022-2023 Face recognition and advanced feature extraction from video data.
Jing Tao 2022-2023 Medical data analytics with advanced annotation tools.
Somiona Tian 2022-2023 Medical data analytics with advanced annotation tools.
Wanqing Li 2022-2023 Emotion detection from video data
Feiting Yang 2022-2023 Noise reduction from rPPG data for face video based vital sign measurement
Yuzhe He 2022-2023 Prediction of blood glucose level using rPPG from face video
Max Beninger 2023-2023 Deep learning based vital sign prediction using face video with rPPG method
Baorong Wei 2022-2023 Speech and text based emotion detection
Asher Song 2022-2023 Streaming big data ingestion and storage in a data lake with metadata processing
Steven Wen 2022-2023 Streaming IoT data ingestion pipeline for an advanced data lakehouse
Ronan Almeida 2022-2023 Developing an end-to-end pipeline for a Triage-Bot to enable voice-video based medical triage service
Eyad El Khodary 2022-2023 Developing the server end storage and query management system for a web application providing medical Triage-bot
Griffin Clark 2022-2023 A point-cloud based collaborative perception for autonomous vehicles from an infrastructure point of view

Past Researchers/Postdoctoral Fellows:


Name Period Funding Project Title
Hasan Zafari Dec 2018-Jan 2022 Mitacs, CIMVHR, IBM, Pfizer Using Advanced Analytics to Understand PTSD (UAAUP)
Haruna Isah Nov 2017-Dec 2019 SOSCIP, Gnowit and IBM A Multilevel Streaming Data Analytics Infrastructure for Predictive Analytics

Past Students:


Graduate Students
Name Period Topic
Martin Woo (MSc) Sep 2020-2022 Hierarchical clustering of data patterns from streaming IoT sensors for human activity recognition.
Amtul Haq Ayesha (MS) Sep 2020-2022 Video and sensor based biometric data measurement using AI techniques.
Karen Batch (MSc) Sep 2019-2022 Annotated radiology text reports analytics for studying cancer metastasis. (co-supervised).
Yuhao Chen (MSc) Sep 2019-2021 A Three-phase Intelligent Question answering system.
Isaac Hogan (MSc) Sep 2019-2021 Activity recognition from skeleton video data. (co-supervised)
Prithila Angkan (MEng) 2019-2020 Human activity recognition using video of skeleton data.
Zunayed Mahmud (MEng) Summer 2020 Object recognition and reidentification to advance multi-object tracking for autonomous vehicles.
Junaid Charaniya (MEng) 2019-2020 Clustering streaming IoT human activity data from sensor devices.
Mohammed Hamadah Gasmallah (MSc) 2018- 2020 An Analysis of Motion Smoothness in Video Object Detection (co-supervised)
Jason Lam (MSc) 2018- 2020 Deep Learning for Legal and Medical Text Analytics
Ftoon Kedwan (PhD) 2017- 2019 A hybrid knowledge management doctoral student framework (co-supervised) (incomplete)
Tariq Abughofa 2016 - 2018 Dynamic graph processing with streaming data
Chanderdhar Sharma (MSc Project) 2017 - 2018 Unstructured text mining and topic modeling
Niventhini Indrajith (MSc Project) 2017 - 2018 Text mining for disease diagnostic.
Mandeep Kandhari (MEng) 2017 - 2018 An intelligent human-machine voice interaction system.
Dharmitha Ajerla (MSc Project) 2017 - 2018 An edge computing framework for fall detection using wearable sensor devices.
Dev Shah (MSc Project) 2017 - 2018 Stock market prediction
Hadeel Alghamdi (MSc Project) 2015 - 2017 Distributed DBMS in WINGS workflow management system (co-supervised)
Kireet Bhat (MSc Project) 2016 - 2017 Extending Spark for cloud-based big data analytics
Tarek Ahmed (PhD) 2016 - 2016 Proactive autoscaling of resources for steam processing engines in the cloud (co-supervised) (incomplete)
Azadeh Eftekhari (MSc) 2013 - 2016 Binary: A framework for Big data Integration for ad-hoc Querying (co-supervised)
Mastoureh Hasanezhad (MSc) 2012 - 2014 Managing long-running queries using query progress (co-supervised)
Rizwan Mian (PhD) 2012 - 2014 Smart Spending: Determining cost-effective resource configurations for executing data-intensive workloads in public clouds (co-supervised)
Undergraduate Students
Name Period Topic
Anshul Pattoo 2021-2022 Breast cancer detection using image data.
Zihan Zhang 2021-2022 3D Object Detection.
Xinyue Li 2021-2022 Optimizing artificial neural networks for multistream data processing for machine cognition.
Boqun Shu 2021-2022 Understanding pain levels from unstructured text data in EMR.
Aleksandar Ivanovic 2021-2022 Anomaly detection from autonomous metrorail unlabeled sensor data.
Tingye Chen 2021-2022 Human Activity Recognition from video data using 2D-3D conversion.
Kaiyun Guo 2021-2022 Human Activity Recognition from real time video data using video camera.
Siyu Chen 2021-2022 Speech recognition for assistive technology.
Hongli Zeng 2021-2022 Speech recognition for assistive technology.
Jackson Cai 2021-2022 A streaming cloud IOT data ingestion and analytics framework for human activity recognition.
Muyun Yang 2021-2022 Creating Human Activity data using Unity to train a human activity recognition model
James Wang 2021-2022 Using Unity to create HAR dataset for video based human activity recogntion.
Katherine Mattatall 2021-2022 Unity project for HAR data generation and analytics.
Simin Zhang 2020-2021 A streaming cloud IOT data ingestion and analytics framework for human activity recognition.
Tao Ma 2020-2021 Chat text summarization for online medical support services.
Yuelin Huang 2020-2021 Chat text summarization for online medical support services.
Jacky Li 2020-2021 Driver drowsiness detection for autonomous vehicles.
Ruikang Luo 2020-2021 Detection of fire events in video or image data.
Jie Li 2020-2021 Predicting Diabetes risk levels from Electronic Medical Records (EMR).
Liam Fiebig 2020-2021 Distributed cloud-based IoT data management.
Gary Guo 2020-2021 A study of social behaviour and visualization through cloud platforms.
Kevin Rush 2020-2021 A study of social behaviour and visualization through cloud platforms.
Yifei Yin 2019-2020 Detecting Employee Type from Legal Cases using Deep Learning to Analyze Unstructured Text Data.
Liam Tharp (Engg-Phys) Sep 2019 (1 year) Hospital Surge Prediction from Near Real Time Data Feed (partner KFLA Public Health)
Brendan Kolisnic (CISC) 2019-2020 Image Object Detection and Classification (industry partner AIdeal)
Zili Lou (CISC) 2019-2020 Email classification and Generating Autoreply
Zhaoyu Yin (CISC) 2019-2020 Driver Fatigue Detection for Autonomous Vehicle Paradigm
Chuyan Zheng (CISC) 2019-2020 Human Face Recognition using Deep Learning for Real Time Conversation
Lixian Su (COGS) 2019-2020 Video Object Segmentation using an Attentive Deep Learning Model
Ryan Kishenbaum (CISC) 2019-2020 Detecting Disease Progression from Electronic Medical Records using Sequential Pattern Recognition Techniques
Sara Langlois (CISC) 2019-2020 Diagnosing Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) from Electronic Medical Records using Machine Learning Models
Ethan Peters (CISC) 2019-2020 Recognizing Food Items using Deep Learning
Martin Woo (CISC) 2019-2020 Hierarchical Pattern Learning using Machine Learning
Yinchen Shi (CISC) 2019-2020 Developing an Adapter for Apache Spark Streaming and IBM Streams
Harsh Patel (Mitacs Globalink) Summer 2019 Video based human activity recognition.
Yu Liu (Mitacs Globalink) Summer 2019 Clustering streaming IoT data to extract patterns.
Hongkai Chen (CISC) 2018-2019 Recognizing patterns from streaming IoT data
Isaac Hogan Winter 2019 Image Component Separation in Image Super-Resolution.
Yuhao Chen Winter 2019 Intelligent Interactive Robotic System.
Chantal Montgomery Winter 2019 Design and Implementation of a Natural Language Customer Query Platform.
Grace (Shihao) Ge Winter 2019 Design and Implementation of a Scalable and In-memory Data Stream Analytics Pipeline.
Kennedy Raltson Winter 2019 Creating an Intelligent, Multilingual System with IBM Watson.
Karen Batch Winter 2019 Modeling of animal learning.
Mitchell Skarupa Winter 2019 Edge Computing for Wearable Sensors.
Alex Wojaczek Winter 2018 Data mining and deep learning models for analyzing unstructured medical text data.
Ruoran Liuk Winter 2018 Design and Implementation of a Data Lake.
Marwa Chermiti (Mitacs Globalink) Summer 2018 Data mining and deep learning models for analyzing unstructured medical text data.
Lucas Rychlo Winter 2018 Lab reporting to public health Ontario: A cognitive computing approach.
Brayden Dewar Winter 2018 Data cleaning and correction using machine learning techniques.
Alex Weatherhead Winter 2018 Designing autonomous vehicles using optical object recognition.
Daisy Barrette Winter 2018 Training autonomous vehicles using machine learning approach with sensor data.
Michael Petkov Winter 2018 Image object recognition using enhanced resolution.
Mohammad Gasmallah Winter 2018 Video object recognition using deep learning models.
Paul Briggs 2017-2018 Using machine learning to predict enemy attacks in computer games.
Michael Judd Winter 2018 Medical text data analytics using NLP and text mining techniques for classification of lower back pain.
Alexandra Poole Winter 2017 Studying the symptoms of dyslexic patients with a view to building an automatic diagnostic tool.
Tiffany Leung Winter 2017 Exploring the applications of virtual reality to improve the quality of education.
Sacha Lansky Winter 2017 Studying the use of bitcoins and blockchains in enabling secure communication in multi-agent systems.
Jonathan Creighton Winter 2017 Developing a hybrid neural network model for stock market prediction
Matthew Sherar 2016-2017 Implementing a particle swarm optimization algorithm in Apache Spark for clustering big unstructured text data.
Hugo Goncalves Summer 2016 An ANN model for categorization and selection of music
Travis Rhee Winter 2016 An ANN model for predicting box office success using movie and social media data analytics
Arwin Chan Winter 2016 Creating building design forms using evolutionary computing
Dan Lefreniere Winter 2016 Predicting hypertension using ANN
Conor Fitzpatrick Winter 2015 Visual Perception and Attention for Game Development
Catherine Aylward Winter 2015 Study of cognitive models for Dyslexia
Sam Yeon Winter 2015 Developing a hybrid neural network model for stock market prediction
Mark Simon Winter 2012 Implementing CAPRI on Amazon Cloud using a Map-Reduce Framework

Highschool Interns
Name Date Started Topic Information
Morgan Gallant (Worked with us twoice) Summer 2018, 2017 Query extension for natural language query processing.
Kendra Denhart Summer 2016 Getting user preference for generating architectural design using evolutionary technique.