PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Feras Dayoub

Feras Dayoub is a robotics and computer vision researcher whose work enables autonomous robots to perceive, map, and navigate changing environments. After earning a PhD from the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems in 2012, he worked at Queensland University of Technology on lifelong visual navigation and computer vision for the COTSBot reef-monitoring robot, and later served as a research fellow at the Australian Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision and as a Senior Lecturer at QUT. From 2022 to 2025, he was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide's Australian Institute for Machine Learning, where his research included semantic segmentation failure detection, domain-adaptive object detection, and the 2025 SmartWay framework for zero-shot vision-and-language navigation. Since 2026, he is an Associate Professor at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning at Adelaide University, where he leads the Embodied AI and Robotic Vision Group and serves as Deputy Director of the French–Australian CROSSING Lab.

Now at
Adelaide University and French–Australian CROSSING Lab
Badges

Timeline

  1. 2009–2012

    Tutoring and a Lincoln PhD

    From 2009 to 2012, he works as a tutor at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom. Dayoub earns his PhD in 2012 from the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems.

  2. 2012–2016

    Postdoctoral fellowship at QUT

    He joins Queensland University of Technology as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Science and Engineering Faculty from 2012 to 2016. Between 2012 and 2014, his postdoctoral fellowship supports the Australian Research Council Discovery Project on lifelong robotic navigation using visual perception, and he receives QUT's Vice-Chancellor's Award in 2015.

  3. 2014–2015

    Computer vision for COTSBot

    Between 2014 and 2015, he leads computer vision for COTSBot, an autonomous underwater vehicle that uses machine learning to detect crown-of-thorns starfish in shallow-water environments. In September 2015, he and QUT colleague Matthew Dunbabin introduce the submersible robot, which patrols near the coral floor to target reef-eating starfish.

  4. 2016–2019

    Robotic vision fellowship at ACRV

    From 2016 to 2019, he serves as a Centre Research Fellow with the Australian Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision. In 2016, he coauthors the paper “Place categorization and semantic mapping on a mobile robot” at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation and is named a finalist for the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes in Environmental Research. In 2019, he serves as a Chief Investigator at the centre and deputy leader of its Robot Learning Program.

  5. 2019–2022

    Robotics leadership at QUT

    At QUT, he serves as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics from 2019 to 2022. From 2020 to 2022, he is a Chief Investigator at the QUT Centre for Robotics and co-leads its Visual Learning and Understanding program. He coauthors a 2020 survey on semantics for robotic mapping, perception, and interaction, and in 2022 he coauthors FSNet, a failure-detection framework for semantic segmentation, in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.

  6. 2022–2025

    Machine learning faculty at Adelaide

    From 2022 to 2025, he is a Senior Lecturer at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning at the University of Adelaide and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at QUT. In 2023, he coauthors the paper “Predicting Class Distribution Shift for Reliable Domain Adaptive Object Detection” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. He receives a Best Paper Honourable Mention at the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision in 2024 and becomes AI Theme lead for the University of Surrey and University of Adelaide partnership.

  7. 2025

    SmartWay vision-and-language navigation

    In 2025, he coauthors SmartWay, a zero-shot vision-and-language navigation framework that integrates an enhanced waypoint predictor with a multimodal large language model navigator and backtracking. Accepted at IROS 2025, the framework includes real-world validation on a Turtlebot 4, and in 2025 he also coauthors “To Ask or Not to Ask? Detecting Absence of Information in Vision and Language Navigation.”

  8. Since 2026

    Embodied AI group at Adelaide

    Since 2026, he is an Associate Professor at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning at Adelaide University, where he leads the Embodied AI and Robotic Vision Group. He also serves as Deputy Director of the French–Australian CROSSING Lab. In 2026, his 2016 coauthored paper “DeepFruits: A Fruit Detection System Using Deep Neural Networks” receives a Most Influential Paper Recognition for the 25th anniversary of Sensors.

Career

  1. Since 2026Adelaide UniversityAssociate Professor
  2. Since 2026French–Australian CROSSING LabDeputy Director
  3. Until 2025University of AdelaideSenior Lecturer
  4. 2016–2019Australian Centre for Robotic VisionCentre Research Fellow
  5. 2012–2022Queensland University of TechnologyPostdoctoral Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer
  6. 2009–2012University of LincolnTutor

Education

  1. 2012Lincoln Centre for Autonomous SystemsPhD

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Adelaide University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Queensland University of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Queensland University of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes University of Adelaide. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Feras Dayoub yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Feras Dayoub | Feras Dayoub’s Home Page ferasdayoub.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Feras Dayoub - IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Website ieee-ras.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Australia Deploys Killer Robots to Terminate Reef-Eating Starfish nbcnews.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. APrf Feras Dayoub | Researcher Profiles | Adelaide University researchers.adelaide.edu.au. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. SmartWay: Enhanced Waypoint Prediction and Backtracking for Zero-Shot Vision-and-Language Navigation arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.