CV

🎓 Education

• Ph.D in Scientific Computing, Uppsala University — Expected 2028
• M.S. in Advanced Computing Science, Tsinghua University — 2019
• B.E. in Software Engineering, NUST — 2015

💼 Work Experience

• Freelance Developer
  Dec 2021 – Dec 2022, Freelancer.com
  Delivered over 50 projects related to Computer Vision, Machine Learning, automation, Web-scraping, and Backend-end development. Top 1% freelancer by performance.
• Software Engineer
  Oct 2015 – Aug 2017, NETSOL Technologies Inc.
  R&D of financial applications. Supervisor: Naveed Shahid.
• Intern
  Mar 2014 – May 2014, Microsoft Pakistan Chapter
  Developed Windows-based mobile apps.

🛠️ Skills

• Languages: C, C++, Python, Java, VB.NET
• Systems: Distributed Systems
• ML: Federated Learning, Adversarial Networks
• Tools: TensorFlow, PyTorch, Docker
• Other: Data scraping, Automation, Backend

📚 Publications

Bayesian Robust Aggregation for Federated Learning.

Aleksandr Karakulev, Usama Zafar, Salman Toor, and Prashant Singh. "Bayesian Robust Aggregation for Federated Learning." (2025).

Robust Federated Learning Against Poisoning Attacks: A GAN-Based Defense Framework.

Usama Zafar, André Teixeira, Salman Toor. "Robust Federated Learning Against Poisoning Attacks: A GAN-Based Defense Framework." (2025).

Decentralized and Incentivized Federated Learning: A Blockchain-Enabled Framework Utilising Compressed Soft-Labels and Peer Consistency.

Witt, Leon, Usama, Zafar, KuoYeh, Shen, Felix, Sattler, Dan, Li, Songtao, Wang, Wojciech, Samek. "Decentralized and Incentivized Federated Learning: A Blockchain-Enabled Framework Utilising Compressed Soft-Labels and Peer Consistency". IEEE Transactions on Services Computing 17. 4(2024): 1449-1464.

🎤 Talks

Talk 1 on Relevant Topic in Your Field

March 01, 2012

Talk at UC San Francisco, Department of Testing, San Francisco, California

🏆 Awards & Achievements

• Top 1% freelancer on Freelancer.com based on client satisfaction and success.
• Chancellor's Silver Medal at NUST for academic excellence.
• Master’s thesis nominated for best thesis at Tsinghua University CS Department.