Accepting PhD Students

    PhD projects

    Looking for PhD students who want to explore and address research problems in the following topics:
    - Ethics and Data Bias in AI-enabled Healthcare Systems
    - Explainable Artificial Intelligence for computer vision tasks
    - Machine learning approaches in medical image analysis.

    Personal profile

    Biography

    Dr Shereen Fouad, PhD (Machine Learning, University of Birmingham - 2013, SFHEA), is a Senior Lecturer in Applied AI and Robotics at Aston University. She leads Aston University’s MSc AI for Health programme and serves as Healthcare and Partnerships Lead within the Aston Centre of Applied AI and Robotics. She is an expert member of the British Standards Institution (BSI) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO), contributing to AI and Machine Learning standards for software in medical devices and post-market surveillance.

    Her expertise spans medical imaging analysis, predictive modelling, explainable AI, and responsible AI adoption across healthcare and industrial settings. Dr Fouad works closely with NHS trusts, industry partners, and regulators to bridge gaps between AI development, clinical practice, and governance. These collaborations have delivered peer-reviewed research, funded PhD studentships, funding awards and validated AI prototypes.

    Research Interests

    • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
    • AI in Healthcare
    • Medical Imaging analysis
    • Explainable AI
    • AI Education and Training in Healthcare

    Teaching Activity

    • Programme Lead of the MSc AI for Health
    • (CS2IAI) Introduction to Artificial Intellegence
    • (CS2TP) Team Project
    • (DG4BIO) AI in Biomedical Imaging

    Key research projects

    Current Projects as Principal Investigator:

    • (April 2026–April 2029, Aston University) PhD+ Studentship: AI-driven venture development. Greater Things Ltd – £50,000. Partner: Greater Things Ltd; AI-native engineering & regional growth.
    • (Jan 26 - Nov 26, Aston University) AI Capability Assessment and Adaptive Learning in Medical Imaging (£30,000). Partners: Sandwell Hospital NHS TrustACAIRA. Funder: EPSRC IAA Innovation Impact 2026
    • (Jan 26 - Jan 29, Aston University) PhD+ studentship. Trustworthy multimodal early warning for pneumonia deterioration in hospital (£50,000). Funder: Sandwell Hospital NHS Trust,
    • (Oct 25- July 26) Aston University Impact Growing fund. Develop GenAI tool for improving medical communication skills. (£15,000). Partner: Aston Medical School 
    • (Sep 25 - Sep 28, Aston University) Biocare KTP. To develop a digital mobile/ web application that utilises the latest advances in AI
      to deliver personalised nutrition and lifestyle recommendations. Academic Supervisor (£355,065). Funder: Innovate UK
    • (Jan 24 - Jan 27, Aston University) PhD studentship. Responsible AI-Driven Decision Support Systems for Enhanced Paediatric Healthcare (£40,000). Funder: Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital
    • (Oct 2024 - Feb 2026, Aston University) UKRI IAA Impact Builder Award (£33,120.52): Responsible AI in Medical Imaging: An Interdisciplinary Educational Initiative. Aim: fill in the AI knowledge gap in NHS organisations by developing and delivering bespoke online educational materials for healthcare providers on responsible AI in healthcare, with a focus on medical imaging. Partners: Sandwell Hospital NHS TrustACAIRA. Funder: UKRI

    Co-Investigator

    • (July 2021 – Dec 2025, Aston University) ESRC project “Understanding how servitization can impact UK economic productivity and environmental performance” (www.servitization.ac.uk). Co-investigator - Leverage data analytic methods to understand relationship between servitization, productivity, and environmental performance1,512,864). Partners: Aston Business School and Business School, Warwick University. Funder: UKRI, ESRC
    • 2024–2027 NHS-funded PhD+ on AI-based 3D scoliosis screening (Contributor). £40k. PI: Adrian Gardner. 
    • 2025 NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowships (12 posts) (Contributor). PI: Zaki Hassan Smith. Proposed and supervise the Digital Health theme, embedding AI-for-health methods in clinical academic training.

    Previous projects:

    • 2024–2025 TrackWise: AI-powered personalised virtual health coach for chronic disease management (Co-I). £2k, DFI Pump-Priming Grant. PI: Manolya Kavakli-Thorne.
    • (Nov 24 - June 25, Aston University) HLS Teaching Research Fund: Interdisciplinary collaboration to drive innovation in medical education. Co-Principal Investigator (£1,800). Aim: develop an AI Enabled Communication Training Tool for Medical Education using Large Language Models (LLM) – particularly GPT and BART models Funder: College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University
    • (Mar 2022 – Mar 2023, Aston University) RKE pump priming fund. Explainable AI-enabled diagnostic tools for detecting respiratory diseases. The tool was evaluated by 26 NHS medical professionals through an ethically approved user study. Principal Investigator (£14000). Partners: Sandwell Hospital NHS Trust . Funder: Aston University, RKE
    • (2019 – 2021, Birmingham City University) The PERSEUS project - Project Perseus led by Jaguar Land Rover. Aim: help JLR and six other car industry partners transition from the manufacturing of diesel/petrol engines to electric vehicles (EV). Birmingham City University's contribution to the project was to develop and deliver purpose-made Continuous Performance Development (CPD) training courses in industry 4.0 and AI technology. Principle investigator (£199,000). Funder: Innovate UK/APC (Advanced Propulsion Centre)
    • (2019 – 2021, Birmingham City University) Project leader for Knowledge Transfer Partnership project with 4Net Technologies (£ 210,523). Aim: leverage AI technology to contact centres for personalised interactions with customers Funder: Innovate UK
    • (2020 – 2021, Birmingham City University) Academic supervisor for KTP project with MET (£181,788) – July 2020. Aim: develop AI-based solutions for Security Operation Centre to improve threat detection accuracy and speed. Funder: Innovate UK
    • (2018 – 2020, Birmingham City University) Academic advisor for Knowledge Transfer Partnership project with Kadfire (£136,487). Aim: develop AI-powered mobile Application for improved train services. Funder: Innovate UK

    PhD Supervision

    Supervising the following PhD research projects:

    • (2026-2029) Trustworthy multimodal early warning for pneumonia deterioration in hospital. Main Supervisor
    • (2025 – present) Applying Artificial Intelligence Methods to create a 3D screening tool for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) based on a digital photograph. Associate supervisor
    • (2025-2028) Responsible AI-Driven Decision Support Systems in ICU for Enhanced Paediatric Healthcare. Main Supervisor
    • (2025 – present) Developing a Digital Twin of the Lungs for Enhanced Treatment Simulation in a Metaverse Environment Aston University - second supervisor. Associate supervisor
    • (2024 – present) Unlocking sleep patterns with advanced data- driven models. Aston University. Associate supervisor
    • (2023 – present) Applications of machine learning in paediatric medical imaging segmentation triaging, Engineering for Health. Aston University. Associate supervisor

    Completed PhD supervision:

    • Part-time PhD - AI for intrusion Detection for Industrial Control Systems by Machine Learning using Privileged Information. Award received in 2025.  Birmingham City University.
    • PhD- Machine learning Framework for Intelligent Detection of Phishing Websites. Award received in 2022. Birmingham City University. 

    Education/Academic qualification

    PhD, Ph.D. in Machine Learning - 2013, The School of Computer Science, The University of Birmingham

    1 Apr 20101 Aug 2013

    Award Date: 1 Sept 2013

    MSc, Computer and Information Sciences - 2005, Ain Shams University

    20042005

    Award Date: 1 Jun 2005

    BSc, Computer and Information Sciences - 2000, Ain Shams University

    19962000

    Award Date: 1 Aug 2000

    External positions

    IEEE Member, IEEE

    Jan 2026 → …

    Member of the AI Ambassador Network, AI Ambassador Network

    Jun 2025 → …

    External Examiner for the Artificial Intelligence Sciences Programme, King Salman International University

    1 Jan 2025 → …

    Expert member in British Standards Institution (BSI) - Medical Devices & AI, Software and Systems, British Standards Institution (BSI)

    18 Dec 2024 → …

    Expert member of International Organization for Standardization (ISO)- Risk Management and Post-Market Surveillance for Medical Devices

    2024 → …

    Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy - 2024, Higher Education Academy

    2024 → …

    Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Birmingham, College of Clinical Sciences

    30 Sept 201930 Sept 2026

    Keywords

    • QA76 Computer software
    • Machine learning
    • Medical imaging
    • Data mining
    • natural language processing
    • Applications of Machine Learning in Business

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics where Shereen Fouad is active. These topic labels come from the works of this person. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
    • 1 Similar Profiles

    Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

    Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or