Dr Rokny joined UNSW on a highly prestigious and competitive UNSW Scientia Program (UNSW Scientia Program aims to attract the best and brightest scientists with outstanding research records in October 2019. Dr Rokny is currently acting as a Scientia Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney and adj Associate Professor at Concordia University. He is leading UNSW BioMedical Machine Learning Laboratory (BML) at the UNSW Graduate School of Biomedical...view more
Dr Rokny joined UNSW on a highly prestigious and competitive UNSW Scientia Program (UNSW Scientia Program aims to attract the best and brightest scientists with outstanding research records in October 2019. Dr Rokny is currently acting as a Scientia Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney and adj Associate Professor at Concordia University. He is leading UNSW BioMedical Machine Learning Laboratory (BML) at the UNSW Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering (GSBmE), where he is mentoring a team of 13 researchers as well as 8 researchers in overseas universities as co-supervisor/mentor. He is also the Heath Data theme Leader of UNSW Data Science Hub. Dr Rokny received his master degree in Statistical Machine Learning (Ranked 1st) and his Ph.D in Biostatistical Machine Learning from UNSW Australia, Jan 2018.
His research focuses on using cutting-edge statistical machine learning, biostatistics, and Advanced Health Data Analytics techniques in conjunction with health and medical data to understand the mechanisms behind diseases and disorders.
As a young and early career scientist, Dr Rokny has published 80 publications, including 10 as first & 45 as senior author. He has also been able to secure several national and international grants/fellowships. Throughput his career, he has received 28 prizes, honours, awards and also was able to secure multiple national and international awards and grants including highly competitive tenure-track UNSW Scientia Program Fellowship, CSIRO Next-Generation Graduate Program (leading CI), Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) IDEAS grant, Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA 2023), two NHMRC MERIT awards, two international awards for his work on Autism from the International Quebec Autism Research Training (QART) program and the International Fellowship Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé (FRQS), two awards from UNSW Cellular Genomics Futures Institute, four external and one internal travel grants to present my research at national and international conferences and workshops. He has also received the best presentation prize in prestigious international conference Human Genome Meeting (HUGO) 2019. Dr Rokny also awarded highly competitive international PhD scholarship from UNSW. Additionally, He has been invited to serve as Keynote Speaker and program committee members of national and international conferences including prestigious International HUGO 2020 (HUGO ECR symposium organization team), Pasteur Institute (invited talk), Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.
My Grants
Dr Rokny received extensive research funding support relative to career stage (total of $2.75M as sole/leading Chief Investigator (CI) and $10.6M as co-CI), demonstrating an impressive upward research career trajectory. These include:
- GESA Paediatric Research Grant (CIB, Nov, 2024)
- UNSW GRIP Award (CIA, Nov, 2024)
- UNSW-SJTU Collaborative Research Grant, (CIA, Nov, 2024)
- Trustworthy Digital Society Grant, (CIA, Oct, 2024)
- Garvan Cellular Genomics Futures Institute Award (CIA, Sep, 2024).
- UNSW Scientia Program Fellowship (variation award) (sole CI), ($800K, Sep 2023).
- CCFA LITWIN IBD Pioneers Program Grant (leading CIB), ($400K, Feb 2023)
- Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) IDEAS grant (CIB), ($600K, Dec 2022)
- CSIRO Next-Generation Graduate Program (leading CI), ($1.7M including $700K for my Lab, Nov 2022)
- GROW Funding (CIA), a competitive internal funding form USNW SYDNEY, Jun 2022, ($40K)
- Tyree Foundation Institute of Health Engineering Catalyst Awards 2021 (sole CI), Nov 2021, ($30K)
- Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA 2022 – sole CI), ($462K)
- The Minor Research Equipment Grant-in-Aid Program Fund (sole CI), UNSW SYDNEY, July 2021, ($61K)
- GROW Funding (sole CI), a highly competitive internal funding form USNW SYDNEY, Jun 2021, ($20K)
- MERIT award offered for NHMRC Investigator Grant (sole CI), WA Dept of Health, Jun 2020, ($95K), declined because of moving to UNSW
- UNSW Cellular Genomics Futures Institute grant (CIB), in collab with Garvan Institute, May 2020, ($50K)
- UNSW Cellular Genomics Futures Institute grant (CIC), in collab with UNSW BABS, May 2020, ($50K)
- Highly competitive tenure-track UNSW Scientia Fellowship Program (sole CI), UNSW, Oct 2019, ($680k)
- Academic Start-up Funding (sole CI), Faculty of Engineering, UNSW, Dec 2019, ($90K)
- Highly competitive International Quebec Autism Research Training Fellowship (sole CI), collab with U of Montreal, Nov 2019, ($120K)
- Highly prestigious Int. Fellowship Fonds de recherche du Québec Santé (FRQS) (sole CI), Oct 2019, ($90K)
- MERIT award for NHMRC Investigator Grant Application (sole CI), WA Dept of Health, Sep 2019, ($50K)
Dr. Rokny has been named on several industry funding in collaboration with Macquarie University), These include:
- Industry research partnership funding (CID), from PORSPA advance company, 750K for my Lab, May 2024, ($4.7M).
- Industry research partnership funding (CID), Australian Digital Domains Group, 600K for my Lab, Nov 2022, ($3.6M).
- Industry research partnership funding (CIE), from Australian digital companies Truuth/Locii, May 2022, ($3.2M).
- Industry research partnership funding (CIC), from PORSPA advance company, May 2021, ($2.1M).
My Qualifications
- Bachelor: Software Engineering, 2004-2009
- Master: Artificial Intelligence, 2009-2012.
- Industry: Data Scientist, 2012-2014.
- Ph.D: BioMedical Machine Learning, UNSW Sydney, 2014-2018.
- Post-Doctoral: Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, UWA Australia, 2017-2019.
- Director of UNSW BioMedical Machine Learning Laboratory (BML), 2019-present.
My Awards
As a very young early career researcher, Dr Rokny has an exceptional track record in securing a range of national and international awards and prizes, despite my early career status. These include:
- · Adjunct Research Scientist, CSIRO, Aug 2022-2023
- · Honorary Lecturer Fellow, University of Macquarie, Oct 2020-2023
- · Travel support award from Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences, Iran, invited speaker, ($1.9K), Feb 2020
- · Health Data Analytics Program Leader, AI-enabled Processes (AIP) Research Centre, Dec 2019-curent
- · MBSJ2019 (42nd Annual Meeting of the Molecular Biology) Travel support award, Japan, ($1K), Dec 2019
- · RIKEN-HUGO award for best oral presentation in Human Genome Meeting 2019, South Korea, ($0.2K), Oct 2019
- · Highly competitive tenure-track UNSW Scientia Fellowship Program award in Aug 2019 ($680K)
- · Vice-chancellor fellowship award from RMIT, ($350K), May 2019 (declined in favour of UNSW Scientia Program).
- · HDR conference support award from UNSW Sydney, ($3K), Jul 2015
- · Travel support award from University of Tehran as invited speaker, Tehran, ($2K), Feb 2015
- · Ph.D scholarship from UNSW Sydney, ($87.5K for 3.5 years), Mar 2013
- · Top-up scholarship from the faculty of medicine, UNSW Sydney, ($30K for 3 years), Mar 2013
- · Ph.D Scholarship award from The University of Newcastle, Australia, Jul 2012
- · Travel award from Faculty of Engineering, The University Newcastle, Australia, ($1K), Jul 2012
- · Government scholarships for Bachelor and Master degrees, (tuition fee waived)
- · Dean’s award as ranked 1 student (out of 700 Master students), Science and Research University of Tehran, Sep 2010
My Research Activities
Dr Rokny’s research focuses on using cutting-edge systems biology and advanced health data analytics techniques in conjunction with genome-wide data to understand the impact of genomic variants on genetic diseases and disorders. He is also interested to develop novel machine learning techniques, in particular, deep convolutional neural network, clustering, clustering, classification, feature selection, and evolutionary algorithms.
Dr Rokny has extensive experience in the analysis of next generation sequencing (NGS) data from different platforms (Roche, SOLiD, Illumina, and Helicos) and protocols (Hi-C, Structural variants, Single point mutations, GWAS, RNA-seq, CAGE, small RNA, ChIP-seq, and Single-cell). The move to UNSW Biomedical Engineering school has allowed him to translate his engineering and medical research on mammalian systems onto clinically relevant questions such as identification of novel biomarkers, drug targets.
Dr. Rokny is currently looking for Research Associate/Assistant, Ph.D/Master/Honours students to join his BML Lab. The research projects will mainly focus on using cutting-edge Medical Artificial Intelligence, Systems Biology and Advanced Health Data Analytics techniques in conjunction with genome-wide data to understand biological and medical related problems.
There are several scholarships available for both international and domestic students. Please see the following links for more information:
- Key-dates: https://research.unsw.edu.au/key-dates
- UNSW Post-Graduate Research Scholarship for international students,
- UNSW Post-Graduate Research Scholarship for domestic students
- Australia awards and endeavour scholarships and fellowships
- Determine your eligibility for a scholarship: https://selfassessment.research.unsw.edu.au/
- Meet English requirement: https://www.unsw.edu.au/english-requirements-policy
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
- Statistical Machine Learning
- Biostatistics
- Data Science
- Medical Artificial Intelligence
- Deep Learning
- Digital Medicine & Digital Biology
- Bioinformatics
- Systems Biology
- Genomics
- Health Data Analytics
There are multiple open Ph.D/Master/Honours positions in my Lab. Also Ph.D scholarships are available for outstanding applicants to study one of the following topics:
- Enhancing chromosome conformation capture resolution with deep convolutional neural network.
- A novel integrative approach to build up transcriptional regulatory networks in neurodevelopmental disorders.
- Analysis of associations between genetic and transcriptomic variations in different populations.
- Deep convolutional neural network in the classification of Single-cell data.
- Using advanced data analytics techniques to get new insight into gene expression profiling in cancers.
Please send me the following documents when you are querying about the scholarships:
- CV
- Transcripts (undergraduate and postgraduate study)
- English test result/plan for international applicants
- Please note that UNSW offers scholarships for outstanding post-graduate students. However, if you have your own funding, it will simplify the process.
Currently supervising
PhD & MPhil Students:
- Sally Chen, PhD student, 2025-2029, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Assoc. Prof Fatemeh Vafaee and Mr Mark Grosser (23Strands company).
- Yuheng Liang, PhD student, 2025-2029, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Prof Nigel Lovell and Dr Reza Argha.
- Caleb The-Tjoean, Master by Research (MPhil), (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Prof Irina Voineagu.
- Lucy Chhua, Master by Research (MPhil), 2025-2028, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Assoc. Prof Ankur Sharma and Prof Nigel Lovell.
- Ellie Shalbafian, Master by Research (MPhil), 2024-2027, (administered by UNSW), joint supervision with Prof Nigel Lovell and Dr Reza Argha.
- Jonathan Williams, Master by Research (MPhil), 2024-2028, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Dr Reza Argha and Prof Nigel Lovell.
- Coco Xiaoge Huang, PhD student, 2024-2028, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Dr Fatemeh Vafaee and Mr Mark Grosser (23Strands company).
- Rebecca Browne, PhD student, 2024-2028, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Prof Nigel Lovell and Dr Reza Argha.
- Tohid Ghasemnejad, PhD student, 2023-2027, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Drs Fabrizzio Horta, Faezeh Marzbanrad, and Mr Mark Grosser (23Strands company).
- Roxana Zahedi Nasab, PhD student, 2023-2027, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Prof Nigel Lovell, Dr Reza Argha, and Dr Mo Lotfollahi.
- Ivan Bakhshayeshi, PhD student, 2023-2027, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Prof Nigel Lovell and Dr Reza Argha.
- Mona (Sedigheh) Abedini, 2023-2027, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Dr Fatemeh Vafaee and A/Prof Orazio Vittorio.
- Md. Mushahidul Islam Shamim, Master by Research (MPhil), 2023-2026, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with A/Prof Nadeem Kaakoush.
- Reza Ghamsari, PhD student, 2022-2026, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Prof Nigel Lovell and Prof Matthew Ritchie (WEHI).
- Mehran Piran, PhD student, 2020-2024, (administered by Monash University), co-supervision with Dr Alex Combes.
- Afshar Shamsi, PhD student, 2023-2027, (administered by Concordia University), co-supervision with Assoc Prof Arash Mohammadi.
- Mahdieh Labani, PhD student, 2021-2025, (administered by Macquarie University), co-supervision with Prof Amin Beheshti.
- Ali Afrasiabi, PhD student, 2020-2024, (administered by UNSW).
- Ted Wong, PhD student, 2019-2025, (administered by University of Sydney), co-supervision with Dr. Boris Guennewig.
- Callum Macphillamy, PhD student, 2020-2024, (administered by University of Adelaide), co-supervision with Dr Wai Yee Low.
- Ning Liu, PhD student, 2019-2023, (administered by University of Adelaide), co-supervision with Dr James Breen.
- Zahra Rahaei, PhD student, 2018-2023, (administered by SUT).
Master Students:
- Hannah Veitch, Master student, 2025-2026, (administered by UNSW).
- Rejisa Becirovic, Master student, 2024-2025, (administered by UNSW).
Previous supervision and mentoring:
- Sunday Offor, PhD student, 2019-2023, (administered by UNSW), co-supervision with Assoc Prof Irina Voineagu.
- Yuheng Liang, Master by Research (MPhil), 2022-2024, (administered by UNSW).
- Sally Chen, Master student, 2023-2024, (administered by UNSW).
- Michael De Francesco, Master student, 2023-2024, (administered by UNSW).
- Gabrielle Younes, Master student, 2023-2024, (administered by UNSW).
- Aryan Bhatla, Master student, 2023-2024, (administered by UNSW).
- Ivy Lan Liu, Master student, 2022-2023, (administered by UNSW).
- Aravind Venkateswaran, Master student, 2022-2023, (administered by UNSW).
- Sascha Graham, Master student, 2022-2023, (administered by UNSW).
- Weilin Wu, Master student, 2021-2022, (administered by UNSW).
- Anthony Xu, Master student, 2021-2022, (administered by UNSW).
- Hanwen Liang, MS student, 2019-2020, (administered by UNSW).
- Rasaa Ghavami, Master student, 2017-2019. Scholarship awarded for PhD degree from SUT.
- Narges Rezaei, Honours student, 2018-2019. Scholarship awarded for Ph.D Degree from University of California, US.
- Masroor Bayati, Honours student, 2017-2018. Scholarship awarded for Ph.D Degree from University of Toronto.
- Hamed Dashti, Honours student, 2016-2018. Scholarship awarded for Master Degree from University of Zurich.
- Mahshid Khatami, Master student, 2018-2020, (administered by SUT).
- Fariba Raoufi, Master student, 2016-2017.
My Teaching
Biomedical Informatics (BIOM9540)
Biomedical Engineering (BIOM4951, BIOM4952, BIOM4953)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2189-9153