Mar. 2020: Joined VideaHealth, an MIT/Harvard startup as the Director of Engineering.

Oct. 2019: Moved to Boston after my wife joined the Broad institute of MIT and Harvard

Since Oct. 2016, I have been taking care of all the development at the EdTech startup eEducation Albert AB, as a CTO.

From March 2008 till Sept. 2016, I was a Manager, Software Engineering at Jeppesen (Boeing) [See wikipedia article on Jeppesen] in Gothenburg, Sweden. Earlier at Jeppesen, I was working on airline and railway crew scheduling problems.

Greece, Oct. 2009

In my past life, I was a Research Associate (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the Chair for Programming Systems (Lehrstuhl 5) Faculty of Computer Science Technical University of Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany.

On June 6, 2008, I defended my doctoral dissertation External memory algorithms for state space exploration in model checking and action planning with a cumulative grade of “mit Auszeichnung” (Summa cum laude).  My Ph.D. advisers were Prof. Dr. Stefan Edelkamp and Prof. Dr. Bernhard Steffen.Other committee members: Prof. Dr. Jan Vahrenhold and Dr. Henrik Björklund.

My doctoral thesis received the Outstanding Dissertation Honorable Mention Award 2009 in the field of Automated Planning and Scheduling. Granted by the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling.

From Oct. 2001 till Dec. 2003, I was a Master’s student at the University of Freiburg, Germany. I finished my Bachelor’s studies from Karachi, Pakistan with the first three years from the University of Karachi and the final year from M. A. Jinnah University, Karachi.

My Erdös number is 5. At the Mathematics Geneology Project, you can browse my forefathers.

 

Research Interests

  • Formal Methods and Model Checking
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • External Memory Algorithms
  • Operations Research
  • Heuristic Search and its Applications
  • Indoor and Outdoor Navigation

 

Other Activities

 

Contact

The best way to reach me is via sjabbar ALPHA acm DOT org. My earlier email address shahid DOT jabbar ALPHA cs DOT uni-dortmund DOT de is still valid too.

 

Awards and Honours

  • Outstanding Dissertation Honourable Mention Award 2009 in the field of Automated Planning and Scheduling. Granted by the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling.
  • Second position in 6th International Planning Competition 2008 (IPC-6) for the planner MIPS-XXL in Net-benefit optimization track. Presented with a monetary award from SICK AG.
  • Finished doctoral dissertation with a cumulated grade of Summa cum laude.
  • Distinguished Performance Award in 5th International Planning Competition 2006 (IPC-5) for the planner MIPS-XXL.
  • Travel Scholarship Award from Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence for AAAI’06 conference, Boston, MA, USA.
  • Travel Scholarship Award from Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence for AAAI’05 conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
  • Doctoral Research funded by Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation).
  • Travel Scholarship Award from `Friends of the University of Freiburg’ for Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC), Shanghai, China, 2003.
  • Second position in Master’s program at University of Freiburg, Germany.
  • Graduated cum laude in Bachelor’s program from Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Karachi, Pakistan.
  • Awarded Gold Medal for distinguished performance among all graduates from Mohammad Ali Jinnah University.

 

Activities in Academia

Member of Program Committee

 

Reviewed papers for the following conferences and journals

  • European Conference on Artificial Intelligence – ECAI’04
  • International Conference on Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation – VMCAI’05
  • Tools and Algorithms for the Construction and Analysis of Systems – TACAS’05
  • IEEE conference on Systems Man and Cybernetics – SMC’05, 06
  • IEEE conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems – ITSC’06
  • International joint conference on Artificial Intelligence – IJCAI’07
  • 34th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming – ICALP’07
  • Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation – SARA’05, 07
  • Workshop on Model Checking Software – SPIN’05, 06, 07
  • International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling – ICAPS’06, 07
  • Journal of AI Communications – 2007
  • IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium – IV’08
  • AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence – AAAI’05, 06, 07, 08
  • Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (STTT), Springer – 2008
  • International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence – IJCAI’09

 

Memberships in Organizations

Currently: ACM, European Association of Software Science and Technology (EASST).

Former: IEEE, AAAI

 

Seminars and Presentations

  • External Memory Value Iteration, at DFG Algorithm Engineering Project Meeting, Karlsruhe, Germany, Dec. 2007.
  • On Constructing a Base Map for Collaborative Map Generation and its Application in Urban Mobility Planning, at IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), Seattle, WA, USA, Oct. 2007.
  • Cost-Optimal External Planning, at AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Boston, MA, USA, Jul. 2006.
  • External Memory Algorithms in Directed Model Checking, at Seminar on Directed Model Checking, Schloss Dagstuhl, Germany, Apr. 2006.
  • Large-Scale Directed Model Checking LTL, at Model Checking Software (SPIN), Vienna, Austria, Mar. 2006.
  • Assisted Stefan Edelkamp during the invited tutorial Directed Model Checking, at Model Checking Software (SPIN), Vienna, Austria, Mar. 2006.
  • Parallel External Directed Model Checking with Linear I/O, at Verification, Model Checking and Abstract Interpretation (VMCAI), Charleston, SC, USA, Jan. 2006.
  • Accelerating External Search with Bitstate Hashing, at KI’05 (German Conference on AI) 19. Workshop on New Results in Planning, Scheduling and Design, Koblenz, Germany, Sept. 2005.
  • Cost-Algebraic Heuristic Search, at National (American) Conference on Artificial Intelligence, (AAAI), Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Jul. 2005.
  • I/O Efficient Directed Model Checking, at Verification, Model Checking, and Abstract Interpretation, Paris, France, Jan. 2005.
  • External Memory Algorithms, organized by ACM student’s chapter, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan, Dec. 2004.
  • GPS-Route, at Workshop on Planning and Configuration’04, Ulm, Germany, Sept. 2004
  • External A*,at German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI), Ulm, Germany, Sept. 2004.
  • External A*,at Seminar on Cache-Oblivious and Cache-Aware Algorithms, Schloss Dagstuhl, International Conference and Research Center For Computer Science, Germany, Jul. 2004.
  • Geometric Travel Planning, at IEEE Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), Shanghai, China, Oct. 2003.
  • Geometric Travel Planning, at Max-Plank Institute for Computer Science, Saarbruecken, Germany, Oct. 2003.
  • An Introduction to DNA Computing, organized by ACM student’s chapter, University of Karachi, Karachi, Pakistan, Jul. 2001.

 

Tutorials

 

Travels

Europe: Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Greece, and Great Britain.

North America: USA (States: New York, Texas, Philadelphia, Washington, South Carolina, Massachusetts) and Canada

Asia: Pakistan, China, Singapore, Iran, and Turkey.