Biography
Samira Zad is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the Knight Foundation School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University (FIU). She previously served as an instructor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Florida Atlantic University from 2022 to 2023. She earned her Ph.D. in computer science from FIU in 2022 under the supervision of Mark Finlayson, supported by a competitive doctoral scholarship from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She also holds an M.S. in computer science from Northeastern Illinois University.
Her research expertise includes natural language processing, machine learning, text mining, semantic analysis and emotion detection. Zad is actively involved in mentoring students and integrates industry partnerships such as CodePath, Google Tech Exchange and Harvard’s PingPong AI learning platform into her teaching to enhance student engagement and workforce readiness. She also mentors master’s students on their capstone projects and collaborates on research with students who demonstrate strong interest.
She is committed to fostering student success, supporting research-driven learning experiences and advancing high-quality computing education at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Education
- Ph.D.