Dr. Zainab Joins WIT–LUMS as Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Zainab has joined the Centre for Water Informatics and Technology (WIT) at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Engineering & Technology (UET), Pakistan, followed by Master's studies focusing on control systems, machine learning, and intelligent automation. She completed her PhD in Control and Intelligent Systems from the University of Engineering & Technology, Pakistan, where her research emphasized data-driven and biologically inspired control frameworks for aeronautical systems.

She has previously been associated with the Human-Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Engineering and Technology and the Control Systems Lab at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, where she contributed to research on intelligent control, robotics, and learning-enabled dynamical systems. These experiences have shaped her interdisciplinary approach, bridging rigorous control theory with real-world, data-efficient learning-based control frameworks for complex and safety-critical systems.

Her research lies at the intersection of control theory, artificial intelligence, and dynamical systems, with a focus on adaptive and robust control, fault detection and isolation, reinforcement learning, and biologically inspired neural models, including liquid time-constant recurrent neural networks and spiking neural networks. 

At WIT–LUMS, Dr. Zainab’s work aligns closely with the Centre’s mission of advancing data-driven solutions for water, agricultural, and climate-resilient systems. By integrating AI-enabled system identification, adaptive control, and intelligent monitoring techniques, her research contributes to improving the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of irrigation networks, water distribution systems, and climate-sensitive cyber-physical infrastructures. Her work complements WIT’s ongoing efforts in demand-based water management, climate risk assessment, and decision-support systems.

Through her work at WIT–LUMS, Dr. Zainab aims to support evidence-based decision-making and sustainable water and agricultural management, particularly in data-scarce and climate-vulnerable regions of the Global South.