Fateme Nikseresht

PhD Candidate at the University of Virginia

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia (UVA). I work under the supervision of Dr. Brad Campbell. I am also a member of UVA Engineering Link Lab. My research focuses on the intersection of wireless systems and networking, smart buildings, smart health, signal processing, and machine learning.

In addition to my academic pursuits, I am currently interning at the UVA Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), working under the guidance of Dr. Lindsay Wheeler. I am privileged to be contributing to the HHMI Inclusive Excellence 3 (IE3) initiative, which focuses on conducting research to cultivate more equitable and inclusive learning experiences within introductory STEM courses.

Prior to embarking on my Ph.D. journey, I earned a Bachelor's degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Shiraz University, advised by Dr. Alireza Keshavarz-Hadad.

News

March 29, 2025 I was a panelist at the ACM Capital Region Celebration of Women in Computing (CAPWIC).
March 22, 2024 I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation proposal.
March 11, 2024 I won the 2024 UVA Raven Society Scholarship. The Raven Society is the oldest and most prestigious honorary society at the University of Virginia.
November 1-5, 2023 It was a pleasure to be a Recruitment Ambassador for UVA Engineering at the 2023 Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).
September 7, 2023 Our paper got accepted at the 10th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Built Environments (BuildSys '23).
August 11, 2023 I have been elected as the SEAS Vice-President of the UVA Graduate Recruitment Initiative Team (GRIT).
May 25, 2023 I have been elected as the Graduate Engineering Student Council (GESC) Representative to the Graduate Studies Committee at UVA.
May 22, 2023 I started my internship at UVA Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE).
May 3, 2023 I won the CS department's Outstanding Graduate Service Award!
April 18, 2023 I presented my paper at the CCI Symposium.
March 16, 2023 I presented my research at the 19th UVA Engineering Research Symposium (UVERS).
February 28, 2023 My paper abstract got selected by the UVA Engineering Research Symposium (UVERS) committee!
December 14, 2022 I successfully defended my qualifying exam entitled "Adaptable Sensor-free Occupancy Detection using WiFi Fine Time Measurement".
October 19, 2022 I presented my poster entitled "Employing Ubiquitous Low-power Wireless Signals in Smart Buildings to Improve Residents’ Comfort and Well-being" in the 2022 NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) Annual Meeting at Virginia Tech.
May 19, 2022 I have been elected as the International Student Liaison of the Graduate Engineering Student Council (GESC) of UVA.
May 2022 I have been elected as Vice President of the Link Lab Student Committee at the University of Virginia.
April 2022 I have been promoted to FIDE Arbiter (FA) by the 2022 1st FIDE Council decision.
April 28, 2022 I am very excited to be one of the session chairs at the Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS) 2022.
March 1, 2022 Our project proposal entitled "Sensor-free occupancy detection and crowd counting system with wireless IoT device network" received UVA Experiential Learning (EL) Fund award.
March 2021 I have been elected as the Vice President of the Iranian Students Association at UVA.
February 12, 2020 I am excited to statt my PhD at the University of Virginia (UVA)!
June 17, 2018 I achieved the highest score in the FIDE Arbiter's Seminar test among 34 arbiters who participated in the Seminar, and I was awarded a norm for the FA title.
March 2017 I presented our novel flow meter calibration system at 2 ^nd Fluid Mechanics National Competition at Isfahan University.

Publications

ScreenSense: Screen Activity Detection in Real‑World Environments with Indoor Light Sensors

Routh, Tushar, Nurani Saoda, Fateme Nikseresht, Md Fazlay Rabbi Masum Billah, Jiechao Gao, Viswajith Govinda Rajan, and Bradford Campbell. "ScreenSense: Screen Activity Detection in Real‑World Environments with Indoor Light Sensors" In Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation

FTM-Sense: Robust Sensor-free Occupancy Sensing Leveraging WiFi Fine Time Measurement

Nikseresht, Fateme and Brad Campbell. "FTM-Sense: Robust Sensor-free Occupancy Sensing Leveraging WiFi Fine Time Measurement" In Proceedings of the 10th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation

PFDRL: Personalized Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning for Residential Energy Management

Gao, Jiechao, Wenpeng Wang, Fateme Nikseresht, Viswajith Govinda Rajan, and Brad Campbell. "PFDRL: Personalized Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning for Residential Energy Management" In Proceedings of the 52nd International Conference on Parallel Processing

Enabling Ubiquitous Occupancy Detection in Smart Buildings: A WiFi FTM-based Approach

Nikseresht, Fateme^*, Wenpeng Wang^*, Viswajith Govinda Rajan, Jiechao Gao, and Brad Campbell. "Enabling Ubiquitous Occupancy Detection in Smart Buildings: A WiFi FTM-based Approach" In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Distributed Computing in Smart Systems and the Internet of Things

The smart building privacy challenge

Wu, Tong, Murtadha Aldeer, Tahiya Chowdhury, Amber Haynes, Fateme Nikseresht, Mahsa Pahlavikhah Varnosfaderani, Jiechao Gao, Arsalan Heydarian, Brad Campbell, and Jorge Ortiz. "The smart building privacy challenge." In Proceedings of the 8th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation, pp. 238-239. 2021.

Detection of Racial Bias from Physiological Responses

Nikseresht, Fateme, Runze Yan, Rachel Lew, Yingzheng Liu, Rose M. Sebastian, and Afsaneh Doryab. "Detection of Racial Bias from Physiological Responses." In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 59-66. Springer, Cham, 2021.

Collision Prediction and Prevention in Contact Sports Using RFID tags and Haptic Feedback

Mostafavi, Moeen, Fateme Nikseresht, Jacob Earl Resch, Laura Barnes, and Mehdi Boukhechba. "Collision Prediction and Prevention in Contact Sports Using RFID Tags and Haptic Feedback." In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, pp. 400-406. Springer, Cham, 2021.

Understanding health and behavioral trends of successful students through machine learning models

Kim, Abigale, Fateme Nikseresht, Janine M. Dutcher, Michael Tumminia, Daniella Villalba, Sheldon Cohen, Kasey Creswel et al. "Understanding health and behavioral trends of successful students through machine learning models." In International Conference on Human Interaction and Emerging Technologies, pp. 516-525. Springer, Cham, 2021.

Adaptive Humanoid Robots for Pain Management in Children

Shenoy, Sudhir, Yueyue Hou, Xinran Wang, Fateme Nikseresht, and Afsaneh Doryab. "Adaptive humanoid robots for pain management in children." In Companion of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 510-514. 2021.

Professional Leadership & Services

Leadership

Vice President of School of Engineering and Applied Science Graduate Recruitment Initiative Team (GRIT) at the University of Virginia

August 2023-Present

Representative to the Graduate Studies Committee Graduate Engineering Student Council (GESC) at the University of Virginia

May 2023-Present

International Studies Liaison Graduate Engineering Student Council (GESC) at the University of Virginia

May 2022-May 2023

Vice-president Link Lab Student Committee at the University of Virginia

August 2022-May 2023

Vice-president Iranian Students Association (IRSA) at the University of Virginia

February 2020-May 2022

Vice-president IEEE Iran Section‑ Shiraz University Branch

October 2016-August 2017

Member Society of Students Against Poverty

January 2016-September 2017

Professional Services

Panelist ACM Capital Region Celebration of Women in Computing (CAPWIC) 2025 | UVA Engineering Orientation 2024
Session Chair Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium (SIEDS) 2022
Recruitment Ambassador Recruitment Ambassador for UVA Engineering at Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) 2023
Reviewer Ubicomp/IMWUT 2020 | HRI 2021 Late Breaking Reports | Ubicomp/IMWUT 2021
Student Volunteer 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligent 2021
Organizer 13th IEEE Iran Section Student Branch Symposium 2016

Awards

2024 Raven Society Scholarship (Recognizing academic dedication, leadership, and community service at UVA) - UVA Raven Society (UVA's oldest and most prestigious honorary society)
Outstanding Graduate Service Award - UVA Department of Computer Science 2022-2023
Selected Abstract Award - UVA Engineering Research Symposium (UVERS) 2023
Fellowship - UVA Experiential Learning Fund 2022 for "Sensor-free occupancy detection and crowd counting system with wireless IoT device network" project
1 ^st Place - Eighth FIDE Seminar on Arbitration 2018
1 ^st Place - Young NODET (National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents) Researchers Competition 2010
2 ^nd Place - Fars Province Woman Swimming Contest 2002

Projects

Ongoing Projects

Sensor‑free Occupancy Detection and Crowd Counting System with Wireless IoT Devices Network

Contactless Vital Sign Measurement Using FMCW Radar

Decimeter-level Localization for a Network of Low-Cost IoT Devices
Student Health and Well‑Being in Academic Workplaces

Past Projects

A Decision Tool for Emotion Regulation Intervention, Course project presented in SYS 6581: AI for Social Good

Translating sign language words via Smartwatch, Course project presented in CS 6501: Signal Processing, Machine Learning, and Control Systems

Investigating the Impact of Noise and Interference on the Quality of Video Conferencing in the context of the local wireless network, Bachelor Thesis

Calibration of Flow Meters by Laser, Poster presented at 2 ^nd Fluid Mechanics National Competition at Isfahan University