Rate My Professor Syed Waqar-ul-Qounain Jaffry

Prof. Dr. Syed Waqar ul Qounain Jaffry is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Information Technology at Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT), University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He serves as Director of the National Centre of Artificial Intelligence (NCAI), Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Multidisciplinary (AIM) Research Lab, and Director of the Agent-based Computational Modelling Lab. In a recent appointment by the Governor of Punjab, he has been assigned the additional charge of Founding Dean, Faculty of Computing and Emerging Sciences at the University of Kamalia. His career at PUCIT spans over two decades, beginning as a Visiting Lecturer in 2001-2002, followed by Lecturer from 2002-2007, Assistant Professor (contract) from 2012-2020, Assistant Professor (tenured) from 2020, and Professor from 2020 to present. He also held a Postdoctoral position in Ambient Intelligence at VU University Amsterdam in 2011. Jaffry has undertaken extensive administrative roles, including PhD Approved Supervisor by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) since 2012, evaluator for Ignite ICTRnD Fund research proposals since 2015, program evaluator for National Computing Education Accreditation Council (NCEAC) since 2016, Vice Chair of IEEE Computer Society Lahore Section since 2019, and member of various university committees such as Senate, Academic Council, and University Ranking Committee at the University of the Punjab.

Jaffry earned his PhD in Computer Science with the highest accolade from the Agent Systems Research Group, Department of Artificial Intelligence, VU University Amsterdam (2007-2011), with the thesis 'Analysis and Validation of Models for Trust Dynamics.' He holds an MSc in Computer Science (1999-2001) and Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Science (1998-1999) from the University of the Punjab, Lahore, and a BSc in Physics and Pure and Applied Mathematics (1996-1998) from Punjab University. His research focuses on computational modelling, agent-based systems, social simulations, data mining, and text analytics. Notable publications include 'Named Entity Recognition and Relation Extraction: State-of-the-Art' (2021, 426 citations), 'Information Extraction from Scientific Articles: A Survey' (2018, 179 citations), 'Textual Keyword Extraction and Summarization: State-of-the-Art' (2019, 131 citations), 'Data Mining for Smart Legal Systems' (2019), 'Modelling Trust Dynamics from a Neurological Perspective' (2011), and 'Agent-based and Population-based Simulation: A Comparative Case Study for Epidemics' (2008). He is a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM, Technical Co-Chair for IEEE ICACS, convener for curriculum review committees at Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board, and has organized events such as National Software Exhibition and Competition (SOFTExpo) from 2013-2017.