Md Zahid Hasan

Graduate Research Assistant

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Email: zahid@iastate.edu

About Me

I am a Graduate Research Assistant at the Self-aware Complex System Lab in Iowa State University. I am working with Dr. Soumik Sarkar on computer vision for autonomous driving and video action understanding. I am pursuing my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, under the supervision of Dr. Soumik Sarkar and Dr. Baskar Ganapathysubramanian. For my current project, I am working on finetuning Vision-language Foundation models (VLMs), investigating the robustness of VLMs, edge-case generation for Foundation models, understanding human actions in video using VLMs and so on. I have experience in working with multimodal (image, video, text) and multi-source (transportation data, clinical data, video data, etc.) data to finetune foundation models in Computer Vision.

Research

My research interests are in the intersection of Computer Vision (CV), Foundation Models (VLM/MLLM), Multi-modal learning, Autonomous Driving (AD), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) models robustness.

Download my curriculum vitae. Feel free to reach out for any discussion.

Research Interest

Computer vision & Human-centric AI
Efficient finetuning of Foundation AI models (VLM, LLM, MLLM)
Spatial Reasoning & scene understanding in MLLMs
Edge-case generation & robustness of Foundation AI models
Video action understanding

Education

Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2021 - 2026)

Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Thesis: "Advancing Human-centric Autonomous Systems via AI Foundation Models"
M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering (2023 - 2024)

Iowa State University, Ames, IA
B.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (2014 - 2018)

Bangladesh University of Eng. & Tech., Bangladesh

Experience

Agentic AI Research Intern

Corteva Agriscience

Supervisor: Jeremiah Barr

Topic: Building AI Agents for yield deviation explanation

March 2026 – Present Johnston, IA

Research Assistant

Self-aware Complex System Lab, Iowa State University

Supervisor: Dr. Soumik Sarkar

Topic: Efficient finetuning of AI foundation models for human-centric applications

June 2021 – March 2026 Ames, IA

Machine Learning Research Intern

RTX Corporation

Supervisor:

Kunal Srivastava, Senior Manager

Soumalya Sarkar, Principal Research Scientist

Topic: Spatial Reasoning & 3D Understanding of MLLM for Engineering Design

June 2025 – September 2025 East Hartford, CT

Teaching Assistant

Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Iowa State University

Supervisor: Vicky Thorland-Oster

Courses: EE 526 (Deep Learning), EE 422 (Communication Systems II), EE 423 (Communication Systems Lab), EE 332 (Semiconductor Materials & Devices)

Jan 2021 – May 2021 Ames, IA

Publications

Driving Analysis & Cognitive Health

Vision-Language Models Can Identify Distracted Driver Behavior From Naturalistic Videos

Md Zahid Hasan, Jiajing Chen, Jiyang Wang, Mohammed Shaiqur Rahman, Ameya Joshi, Senem Velipasalar, Chinmay Hegde, Anuj Sharma, Soumik Sarkar

IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2024.

Roadway weather challenges illuminate real-world driving biomarkers of dementia risk

Md Zahid Hasan, Guillermo Basulto-Elias, Russell Kai Liang Tan, Jun Ha Chang, Soumik Sarkar, Anuj Sharma, Shauna Hallmark, Matthew Rizzo, Jennifer Merickel

Alzheimer's & Dementia (2023)

DriveCLIP: Zero-shot transfer for distracted driving activity understanding using CLIP

Md Zahid Hasan, Ameya Joshi, Mohammed Rahman, Archana Venkatachelapathy, Chinmay Hegde, Anuj Sharma, Soumik Sarkar

36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2022) Workshop on Machine Learning for Autonomous Driving, New Orleans, LA, 2022.

Classifying Cognitive Decline in Older Drivers from Behavior on Adverse Roads Detected Using Computer Vision

Md Zahid Hasan, Guillermo Basulto-Elias, Shauna Hallmark, Jun Ha Chang, Anuj Sharma, Jeffrey D. Dawson, Soumik Sarkar, Matthew Rizzo

Journal of Transportation Technologies, 2025.

Driving as a Diagnostic Tool: Scenario-based Cognitive Assessment in Older Drivers from Driving Video

Md Zahid Hasan, Guillermo Basulto-Elias, Jun Ha Chang, Shauna Hallmark, Matthew Rizzo, Anuj Sharma, Soumik Sarkar

(Under review)

Autonomous Systems & Safety

RLS3: RL-Based Synthetic Sample Selection to Enhance Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models for Indoor Autonomous Perception

Joshua R. Waite, Md Zahid Hasan, Qisai Liu, Chinmay Hegde, Soumik Sarkar

16th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS 2025), Irvine, CA, 2025.

GENESIS-RL: GEnerating Natural Edge-cases with Systematic Integration of Safety considerations and Reinforcement Learning

Hsin-Jung Yang, Joe Beck, Md Zahid Hasan, Ekin Beyazit, Subhadeep Chakraborty, Tichakorn Wongpiromsarn, Soumik Sarkar

2024 IEEE International Automated Vehicle Validation Conference (IAVVC 2024), Pittsburgh, PA, 2024.

Optimization & Foundations

Balancing Utility and Privacy: Dynamically Private SGD with Random Projection

Zhanhong Jiang, Md Zahid Hasan, Nastaran Saadati, Aditya Balu, Chao Liu, Soumik Sarkar

Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR 2025)

FUSE: First-Order and Second-Order Unified SynthEsis in Stochastic Optimization

Zhanhong Jiang, Md Zahid Hasan, Aditya Balu, Joshua R Waite, Genyi Huang, Soumik Sarkar

IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IEEE CAI 2025), Santa Clara, CA, 2025.

Datasets & Benchmarks

BioTrove: A Large Curated Image Dataset Enabling AI for Biodiversity

Chih-Hsuan Yang*, Benjamin Feuer*, Talukder Zaki Jubery, Zi K. Deng, Andre Nakkab, Md Zahid Hasan, Shivani Chiranjeevi, Kelly O. Marshall, Nirmal Baishnab, Asheesh K Singh, Arti Singh, Soumik Sarkar, Nirav Merchant, Chinmay Hegde, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian

38th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024) Track on Datasets and Benchmarks (Spotlight)

Services

Peer Reviewer

ICLR 2026

Conference

Medical Image Analysis

IF: 11.8

IEEE Trans. on Intelligent Transportation Systems

IF: 8.4

Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence

IF: 8.0

Transportation Research Part D

IF: 7.7

Pattern Recognition

IF: 7.6

Neurocomputing

IF: 6.5

Computers and Electrical Engineering

IF: 4.9

Digital Health

IF: 3.3

Invited Talks

"An overview of Vision-Language models." at Translational AI Center (TrAC), Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA (Nov 16th, 2022).
"When and why vision-language models behave like bags-of-words, and what to do about it?" at Student Journal Club: TrAC, Iowa State University, Ames, IA (2023).

Leadership Positions

Assistant Secretary

Graduate Organization of Electrical and Computer Engineering (GOECpE), Iowa State

Fostered social interactions and professional development among Iowa State ECE students
Organized fundraising initiatives for student engagement events
Coordinated workshops and seminars to enhance student skill sets and networking opportunities

Senator

Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS), Iowa State

Elected to Student Government by the Iowa State graduate student body
Represented the graduate and professional student body as a whole on the Student Government
Developed and disseminated ideas for the improvement of graduate and professional education

Ambassador

Cultural Ambassador Program (CAP), Iowa State International Students and Scholars Office

Facilitated meaningful cross-cultural connections, bridging international and U.S. students
Developed cross-cultural skills and community inclusive skills
Enriched understanding of diverse perspectives while supporting cultural exploration

Graduate Member

Iowa State IEEE-HKN: Nu Chapter

Conducted helproom sessions to support undergraduate students in academic challenges
Led weekly discussions to foster a collaborative learning environment

Student Member

IEEE at Iowa State (2021–22)

Participated in industry sessions, tech events, and exhibits to broaden technical knowledge
Contributed to educational outreach programs to inspire future engineers

Volunteer

Iowa State Bangladesh Student Association

Assisted in planning and execution of community events and cultural celebrations
Supported new members by providing resources and guidance for onboarding

Volunteer

American Red Cross Iowa Region