Biography
Syaheerah (Sha-hee-ra) Lebai Lutfi received both my DEA and Ph.D degrees (with distinction Cum Laude) from Grupo de Technología del Habla y Aprendizaje Automático (GTHAU) – Speech Technology and Automated Learning Group, University Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, in June 2013, under the supervision of Prof. Juan Manuel Montero and Prof. Fernándo Fernández Martínez (University Carlos III, Madrid). Her general research interest is Human-Computer Interactions, specifically focusing on Affective Computing (behaviour analytics, personality, culture, mood and emotion analysis & modelling). In short, her main research question revolves around “how to make machines more emotionally (and perhaps culturally) sensitive to users?”. Syaheerah’s doctorate Thesis concerns the design and evaluation of an emotional model– that was put to test with several applications in the spoken language dialogue domain. She also holds a certification in Health Informatics through KSU (Riyadh) and OHSU (Oregon) joint initiative.
Since October 2024, she has been serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics, at the College of Medical Informatics at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), under secondment from Universiti Sains Malaysia. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), where she began her academic career in June 2013. Dr. Syaheerah has published over 60 papers in numerous peer-reviewed journal and conference papers that have garnered significant impact. Since 2015, she has also served as the EU Erasmus+ coordinator, promoting academic partnerships with multiple European universities.
Syaheerah’s stay in GTHAU was funded by a joint fellowship from the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and University Sains Malaysia (USM). She earned her BSc. Computing from Bolton University, UK , in 2000 and a Masters in Software Engineering from University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur in 2007, also with a USM scholarship.
Dr. Syaheerah has enjoyed diverse international collaborations. From January to April 2011, she was a visiting researcher at MACS, Heriot-Watt University, contributing to the EU-funded FP7 project eCUTE, which developed culturally-sensitive, tech-enhanced learning tools. In 2015, she joined Prof. Kotani’s Emotion Lab at JAIST, Japan, to study cross-cultural speech emotions. Selected among Malaysia’s top young academics, she joined the CEO@Faculty 2.0 program, serving as a visiting lecturer at Intel Penang in 2019. Dr. Syaheerah regularly participates in European research exchanges – This includes UPM Madrid, UC3M and Obuda Hungary., and in summer 2023, collaborated with a Canadian data analytics firm on health-focused PowerBI Dashboards. She retains IP rights for two information dashboards at USM.
Before entering the research field, Syaheerah spent three years in the industry – as an IT Executive at MaybanLife Berhad, Kuala Lumpur, and Systems Analyst at National Poison Centre, USM, Penang. She was the Program Manager for Industrial Training, Student Activities & Alumni under the academic section, and the adviser for the term’s CS Society. She has been appointed as the Deputy Director of the International Mobility and Collaboration Center (IMCC ) in 2019 — heading International Strategy & Collaborations. Her portfolio also covered Global Engagement from 2023 onwards. She is the founder and adviser to USM International — the enthusiastic, colourful faces of USM International (USMi) :).
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