Data Science & Data Management in Healthcare
FAIR-compatible architectures, BIDS, data lakes & mesh-based platforms for clinical and brain-imaging data.
Associate Professor · Tarbiat Modares University
Ali Asghar Safaei, Ph.D.
Research at the intersection of data science, generative AI, and pervasive medical systems — building data architectures and intelligent software that improve diagnosis, decision-making and patient care.
- Healthcare Data Science
- Generative & Agentic AI
- IoT & Wearables
- Drug Repositioning
Distinguished Researcher · TMU 2021
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Journal articles
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Conference papers
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Books
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Years in research
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Journals reviewed for
01About
A career between computer science and medicine.
I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University. My work brings together advanced data management, machine learning, and pervasive systems to address real problems in healthcare and biomedical research.
Over the past two decades I have led research and engineering teams across academia and industry — from designing the architecture of a national DBMS, to founding startups in indoor positioning and VR/AR for medical education, to building an open data platform for the National Brain Mapping Lab of Iran. I currently serve as CTO of the Smart Government project at the Information Technology Organization of Iran, and direct the NBIC Science & Technologies Research Department at TMU's ICT Research Institute.
My students and I publish on data-driven diagnosis (cancer, cognitive disorders, dental, prostate), FAIR data architectures, parallel stream processing, and AI agents for clinical decision support. I sit on the editorial boards of two journals and review for more than thirty international titles.
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Ph.D., Computer Engineering (Software) Iran University of Science and Technology, 2011
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Distinguished Researcher Tarbiat Modares University, 2021
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First Rank, B.Sc. Computer Engineering Air University, 2001
02Research Interests
Five focus areas, one goal: better health outcomes through data.
Generative & Agentic AI in Healthcare
LLM-driven chatbots, clinical decision support, and deep-learning models for diagnosis from images, EEG and EHR.
IoT, Pervasive & Wearable Systems
Indoor positioning, smart blankets for ambulance triage, body-area sensor networks, and edge analytics.
Personalized Medicine
Patient-centric data models, social-network-based PHRs, and predictive models tailored to individual risk profiles.
Drug Repositioning
Knowledge graphs and ML approaches for re-purposing existing drugs to new therapeutic indications.
03Selected Publications
Recent peer-reviewed work.
Highlights from 70+ journal papers. Filter by topic to narrow the list.
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2026
Diagnosis of Leukemia from Bone Marrow Flow Cytometry Data using Deep Learning and Explainable AI
DOI 10.1016/j.ajpath.2026.03.011 -
2026
FAIR m-BIDS: Advancing brain data utilization through multimodal and FAIR principles
DOI 10.1038/s41597-026-06790-7 -
2026
Advanced Parkinson's disease diagnosis: leveraging deep learning and machine learning with vowel analysis
DOI 10.1007/s00521-025-11727-z -
2025
A NoSQL document-based eCRF system for the study of vaccines with variable adverse events — case study: COVID-19 vaccines
DOI 10.1038/s41598-025-05746-y -
2025
Design and Evaluation of ACAFiB-APP, a clinical decision support system for anticoagulant considerations in atrial fibrillation
DOI 10.1186/s12872-025-04615-w -
2025
Diagnosis and Prognosis of Melanoma from Dermoscopy Images using Machine Learning or Deep Learning — a systematic literature review
DOI 10.1186/s12885-024-13423-y -
2024
Prostate Cancer Diagnosis Based on Multi-Parametric MRI, Clinical and Pathological Factors using Deep Learning
DOI 10.1038/s41598-024-65354-0 -
2024
Efficient Deep Learning Approach for Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children Based on EEG Signals
DOI 10.1007/s12559-024-10302-3 -
2024
StreamFilter: a framework for distributed processing of range queries over streaming data with fine-grained access control
DOI 10.1007/s10586-024-04402-w -
2024
Dental Caries classification from Bitewing images using CNNs
DOI 10.1186/s12903-024-03973-9 -
2024
Distributed Independent Vector Machine for Big Data Classification
DOI 10.1007/s11227-023-05711-4 -
2021
Design and Evaluation of a Wearable Smart Blanket System for Monitoring Vital Signs of Patients in an Ambulance
DOI 10.1155/2021/8820740
04Experience
Academic leadership & industry impact.
Selected current and past roles across universities, national institutes and the private sector.
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2025 — Now
Consultant to the Chairman CTO, Smart Government
Information Technology Organization of Iran
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2024 — Now
Director, NBIC Sci. & Tech. Research Department
ICT Research Institute, Tarbiat Modares University
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2024 — Now
Director, BioBank — Open Brain-Mapping Data Platform
National Brain Mapping Lab. of Iran (NBML)
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2023 — 2025
IT Consultant — CTO, Digital Transformation
Deeds and Properties Registration Organization of Iran
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2020 — Now
Associate Professor, Biomedical Informatics
Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran
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2018 — Now
Adjunct Professor, Data Science Interdisciplinary Dept.
Tarbiat Modares University
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2017 — 2023
Head, Department of Biomedical Informatics
Tarbiat Modares University
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2021 — 2023
CEO & Co-Founder Indoor Positioning
RahNama Startup Company
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2018 — 2021
CEO & Co-Founder VR/AR for Healthcare
PadidAR-VR Startup Company
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2014 — 2020
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Informatics
Tarbiat Modares University
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2012 — 2014
Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering
K.N. Toosi University of Technology
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2008 — 2012
Project Manager — National DBMS Development
ISIRAN Company, R&D Center for Fundamental Software
05Teaching
Postgraduate courses I teach or have taught.
- Data Mining & Knowledge Discovery from Data
- Medical Software Design
- BioInformatics
- Data-Intensive Computing
- Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS)
- Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems
- Medical Information Systems: Design and Evaluation
- Distributed Systems
- Database Security
- Advanced Databases & Modern Data Management
- Advanced Software Engineering
- Free/Open-Source Software (FOSS) Development
Books
- Principles of Healthcare Information Systems Development Tarbiat Modares University Publications, 2025 — Persian
- Parallel Processing of Data Streams LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2017
- Database Systems: Theory and Application IUST Publications, Vol. 2 — Advanced Concepts (2007)
06Technical Skills
A practitioner's toolbox.
Data Science
- Python — PyTorch, TensorFlow, Keras
- Pandas, NumPy, OpenCV, Matplotlib
- R framework — statistics & mining
- SQL (SQL Server, SQLite) and NoSQL
- MongoDB, Redis, Neo4j
- Spark, Hadoop, MapReduce
Data Architecture
- BIDS — Brain Imaging Data Structure
- FAIR-compatible platforms
- Mesh / domain-driven data design
- Data warehouse / mart / lake / lakehouse
- Medallion data-quality model
LLM & AI Chatbots
- LLM-based chat for cognitive assessment
- Standardized questionnaires & flows
- DL diagnosis from MRI, EEG, EHR
- Agentic workflows in clinical context
Healthcare Apps & Cloud
- Prostate cancer diagnosis mobile app
- Dental screening & self-care app
- NoSQL eCRF (MongoDB) for clinical studies
- MS Azure, Kubernetes, OpenShift
- GitLab CI/CD, Bash automation
Virtual & Augmented Reality
- Unity & Unreal engines, ARKit
- VR training for medical procedures (LP, etc.)
- AR rehab (Parkinson, Xbox Kinect)
- MedUnity dev framework for healthcare VR
Internet of Things
- Cloud-based indoor / outdoor positioning
- RahNama IPS — sub-2 m accuracy, <10 s fix
- Hospital RTLS, smart-mall, exhibition editions
- IoT data management & analytics
07Service & Grants
Editorial work, reviewing, and funded research.
Editorial Boards
- Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data
- Journal of Data Science and Intelligent Systems
Reviewer For
Selected Grants
- Mobile App for Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
INSF & NIMAD, 2022 — Principal Investigator - Observatory of Virtual Medical Education (COVID-19)
NASR, 2022 — PI - VR/AR-Based Medical Education Framework
NASR, 2018 — PI - National DBMS — Specification & Architecture
MSRT & ISIRAN, 2011 — Project Manager
08Contact
Open to research collaborations, consulting, and graduate supervision.
The fastest way to reach me is by email. I read everything personally.
Email — Academic
aa.safaei@modares.ac.ir
Email — Personal
aa.safaei@gmail.com
Office Phone
+98 21 8288 4581
University Page
modares.ac.ir / aasafaei
ORCID
0000-0003-1985-8720
Office
Dept. of Medical Informatics, Faculty of Medical Sciences,
Tarbiat Modares University, P.O. Box 14115-331, Tehran, Iran
Tarbiat Modares University, P.O. Box 14115-331, Tehran, Iran