Sherief Abdallah
Lecturer
Institute of
Informatics
British University
in Dubai
Knowledge Village,
Block 17
Dubai, United Arab
Emirates
Email: 
Tel: +971 4 367 1964
Fax: +971 4 366 4698
About me
I am Sherief Abdallah. My undergraduate studeies and first MSc were
completed in Egypt (Cairo University). Through scholarship, I got
my MS/PhD in 2006 from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, under
the supervision of Professor Victor Lesser. I am currently a Lecturer
at the British University in Dubai and an Honorary Fellow at University
of Edinburgh, UK.
Research Interests
I am generally interested in
developing adaptive systems that automatically improve their performance. One
of my research interests is reinforcement learning in large scale multi-agent
systems. I am particularly interested in studying networks of agents and
developing distributed learning algorithms that allow these agents to
cooperate. An orthogonal direction is to develop distributed algorithms to
optimize the structure of the network of (concurrently) learning agents.
My other research interest is
applying machine learning and data mining techniques to real and novel problems
that span over interdisciplinary areas, including atmospheric studies, e-commerce,
information retrieval, mobile devices, sensor nets, and network management.
Please refer
to my
research statement for more details CV.
I am co-leading the Dubai Agents &
Multi-Agent Systems (DAMAS) research group together with MAS-mate Iyad Rahwan. If you are interested in pursuing PhD in University of Edinburgh while residing in Dubai, please send me an email.
Software
Distributed task allocation simulator.
Teaching
Learning from Data (Machine Learning): Fall 2006, Fall 2007
Data mining: Spring 2007, Spring 2008
Publications
Workshops
- S.
Abdallah and V. Lesser. Distributed
Learning and Self-organization in a Random Networks.
6th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and
Multi-agent Systems, AAMAS, 2007
- S.
Abdallah and V. Lesser. Learning
Task Allocation via Multi-Level Policy Gradient Algorithm with Dynamic
Learning Rate. Workshop on Planning and Learning in A Priori
Unknown or Dynamic Domains, the International Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI 2005.
- S.
Abdallah, H. Zhang, and V. Lesser. The
Role of an Agent Organization in a Grid Computing Environment.
In Proceedings of ICAPS'04 workshop on planning and scheduling for web
and grid services, June 2004.
- M.
Zink, D. Westbrook, S. Abdallah, et al. Meteorological
Command and Control: An End-to-end Architecture for a Hazardous Weather
Detection Sensor Network. Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on
End-to-End, Sense-and-Respond Systems, Applications, and Services (EESR
05), pp. 37-42. June 2005.
Conferences
- Sherief
Abdallah and Victor Lesser (2008). Non-linear
Dynamics in Multiagent Reinforcement Learning
Algorithms. In: Proceedings of 7th International Conference on
Autonomous
Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS). Estoril, Portugal. (acceptance
rate 37%)
- Chongjie
Zhang,
Sherief Abdallah, and Victor Lesser (2008). Efficient Multi-Agent
Reinforcement Learning through Automated Supervision. In: Proceedings
of
7th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems (AAMAS). Estoril, Portugal. (acceptance
rate 37%)
- S.
Abdallah and V. Lesser. Multiagent
Reinforcement Learning and Self-organization in a Network of Agents.
In Proceedings of 6th International Joint Conference on Autonomous
Agents and Multi-agent Systems, AAMAS, 2007 (acceptance
rate 22%) Runnerup
for "Best Paper Award".
- S.
Abdallah and
V. Lesser. Modeling
Task Allocation Using a Decision Theoretic Model. In
Proceedings of 4th International
Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS,
2005 (acceptance
rate 24%).
- J.
Ostwald, V. Lesser, and S. Abdallah. Combinatorial
Auctions for Resource Allocation in a Distributed Sensor Network.
In proceedings of the 26th IEEE International Real-Time
Systems Symposium, (RTSS'05), IEEE Computer Society Press. December
2005
(acceptance
rate 21%).
- S.
Abdallah and
V. Lesser. Organization-Based
Cooperative Coaltion Formation.
In Proceedings of Intelligent Agent Technology, IAT, 2004 (acceptance
rate 16%).
- XQ
Zhang; V.
Lesser; and S. Abdallah. Efficient
Ordering and Parameterization of Multi-Linked Negotiation. In
Proceedings 2nd International Joint
Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent
Systems. (Extended abstract), July, 2003. Full version available as
UMASS Computer Science Tech. Report
#02-42.
- S.
Abdallah and
et al. Monitoring
and Synchronization for Teamwork (or .pdf).
In Proceedings of 17th ACM Symposium
on Applied Computing (the Special Track of Coordination Models,
Languages and
Applications). March, 2002 (acceptance
rate 42%).
Journals
Book Chapters