Senior Data Scientist
Public Health Modelling Group

Qualifications

• PhD (Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School)
• MSc Media Informatics (Aachen University of Technology, RWTH-Aachen, Aachen, Germany)
• BS Computer Science (Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Karachi, Pakistan)

Background and experience

Ali studied for his PhD at Centre for Policy Modelling, Manchester Metropolitan University. In his PhD he worked on Social Network Systems (SNS) by studying their complex structure, and modelling evolution of their underlying networks over time.

Previously he was part of the Tribler team at Delft University of Technology, as a Research Assistant. His main theme of work was around distributed social networking. During his stint there, he designed and deployed a completely decentralized SNS in Tribler.

During his masters at Aachen, he worked with Fraunhofer Institute of Technology for more than two years as a Research Assistant on SwapIt project. His main tasks involved software development in Java.

Current work and interests

Ali is a Senior Data Scientist and a public-health/transport modeller. He is interested in active travel, specifically cycling research.

Data Science/Software contributions:

• Joining Impact models of transport with spatial measures of the Built Environment (JIBE) UK and Australian project looking at benefits of transport planning in creating healthier and sustainable cities (GIS, agent-based models and land-use and transport interactions (LUTI) models using R, Java)
• GLASST: Global and local health impact assessment of transport Create methods, models, and tools to support inclusion of health into transport decision making
• Towards an Integrated Global Transport and Health Assessment Tool (TIGTHAT): Multi-national transport and health impact model (GitHub)
• National Propensity to Cycling Tool: National Planning Support Systems (PSS) for cycling infrastructure (GitHub)
• Impacts of Cycling Tool: Transport and Health Impact Model based on National Travel Survey (GitHub)
• Meta-Analyses of Physical Activity: Meta-analysis using dosresmeta R package (GitHub)
• Changing Commute project: Agent-based model for sustainable commute.

He has extensive modelling experience which spans over Complexity Science, Computer Science and Sociology in general. Also he is well-versed in Social Network Analysis (SNA) of both small and large networks. He also holds a diverse programming experience.

He is interested in developing good understandings for an environment friendly and sustainable transport system with a positive impact on public health. He is an advocate of open and reproducible research. His work can be seen on GitHub.

Publications

• MRC Epidemiology Unit publications on the Publications Database

Selected Publications

• Garcia L, Pearce, M, Abbas, A, Mok, A & Strain, T et al. Non-occupational physical activity and risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mortality outcomes: a dose response meta-analysis of large prospective studies. British Journal of Sports Medicine; 27 Feb 2023; DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2022-105669
• Garcia L, Johnson R, Johnson A, Abbas A et al. Health impacts of changes in travel patterns in Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, Ghana. Environment International 155: 106680 (2021)
• Woodcock J, Abbas A, Ullrich A, Tainio M, Lovelace R, Sá T, Westgate K, Goodman A. Development of the Impacts of Cycling Tool (ICT): A modelling study and web tool for evaluating health and environmental impacts of cycling uptake. PLOS Medicine (2018)
• Lovelace R, Goodman A, Aldred R, Berkoff N, Abbas A, Woodcock J. The Propensity to Cycle Tool: An open source online system for sustainable transport planning. Journal of Transport and Land Use (2016)
• Abbas SMA, Aldred R, Chalabi Z, Woodcock J. Use of an agent-based model to explore urban transitions in commuter cycling. Social Simulation Conference, Bellaterra, Cerdanyola del Vallès (2014)
• Abbas SMA, 2013. An Agent-Based Model of the Development of Friendship links within Facebook. Journal of Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory (2013)

Please see the complete list on Google Scholar Profile.