PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Hussein Abbass

Also known as Hussein A. Abbass

Hussein Abbass is a professor at UNSW Canberra who works on evolutionary learning, AI-guided swarms and trusted autonomous systems. Born in Cairo in 1969, he earned an MSc in artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh in 1997 and a computer science PhD at Queensland University of Technology in 2000. He joined UNSW Canberra in 2000, became a professor in 2007, and was named an IEEE Fellow in 2020 for contributions to evolutionary learning and optimization. From 2020 to 2024, he was the founding editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, and in 2022 his team created JSwarm, a swarm-guidance language inspired by the Aboriginal language Jingulu. His current research focuses on trusted human-AI-swarm teaming and the testing of autonomous systems, and he chairs the IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award Committee for 2025–2026.

Timeline

  1. 1969–1995

    Studies at Cairo University

    Born in Cairo in 1969, he earns a BA from Cairo University in 1990. He begins lecturing in the university's Department of Computer Science in 1994 and completes a research master's there on multi-objective constraint logic programming in 1995.

  2. 1997–2000

    Edinburgh MSc, QUT PhD

    He completes an MSc in artificial intelligence in the University of Edinburgh's AI Department in 1997, winning the Rank Xerox prize for the best master's thesis in AI. In 2000, he earns a computer science PhD at Queensland University of Technology with a thesis on computational intelligence techniques for decision making, applied to the dairy industry.

  3. 2000–2010

    Professor at UNSW Canberra

    He joins UNSW Canberra in 2000 and becomes a professor in 2007. He is a John-Yu visiting fellow in Imperial College London's Department of Computer Science in 2003 and a visiting scholar in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Department of General Engineering in 2005. From 2006 to 2010, he directs UNSW's Defence and Security Applications Research Centre.

  4. 2014–2016

    Computational red teaming

    He publishes Computational Red Teaming: Risk Analytics of Big-Data-to-Decisions Intelligent Systems with Springer in 2014. From 2014 to 2016, he holds a $399,000 ARC Discovery grant on challenging systems to discover vulnerabilities through computational red teaming.

  5. 2016–2020

    IEEE vice-president and Fellow

    From 2016 to 2019, he serves as vice-president for technical activities of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. The IEEE elevates him to Fellow in 2020 for contributions to evolutionary learning and optimization.

  6. 2020–2024

    Founding IEEE Transactions on AI

    He is the founding editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence and leads the journal from 2020 to 2024. From 2021 to 2023, he chairs the steering committee of the IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence, and from 2022 to 2024 he is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society.

  7. 2022

    JSwarm, inspired by Jingulu

    In 2022, he leads research showing that Jingulu, a language of the Jingili people in the Northern Territory, translates easily into AI commands because it relies on three verbs: come, go and do. With linguist Eleni Petraki of the University of Canberra and Robert Hunjet of the Defence Science and Technology Group, his team creates JSwarm, a Jingulu-inspired language for guiding swarms of robots and AI agents.

  8. As of October 2026

    Trusted human-AI-swarm teaming

    He is a full professor in UNSW Canberra's School of Systems and Computing, where his research focuses on trusted quantum-enabled human-AI-swarm teaming and trusted testing of autonomous systems. He chairs the IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award Committee for 2025–2026. In July 2026, he writes that an autonomous agent powered by OpenAI models hacked Hugging Face during a security test, a sign of a seismic shift in cybersecurity.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Hussein Abbass - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. About | Professor Hussein Abbass husseinabbass.net. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Professor Hussein Abbass unsw.adfa.edu.au. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Professor Hussein Abbass | Trusted Autonomy husseinabbass.net. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Hussein Abbass - Proceedings of the IEEE proceedingsoftheieee.ieee.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Aboriginal language could help solve complex AI problems unsw.edu.au. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. Australian Indigenous language used in AI breakthrough | Information Age | ACS ia.acs.org.au. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. OpenAI’s models autonomously hacked a tech startup. It signals a seismic shift in cybersecurity - AIhub aihub.org. Checked 19 October 2026.