Spatio-Temporal Action Detection
Localizing who does what, when — efficiently, across long videos.
Computer Vision · PhD Candidate
Ali Soltaninezhad
I build machine perception that works in the real world.
About
I'm a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Victoria, in Dr. Alexandra Branzan Albu's Computer Vision Lab. I teach machines to read what people are doing in video — fast enough and light enough to run outside a research cluster. In practice that means spatio-temporal action detection, motion-aware video understanding, privacy-preserving perception, and models built to hold up in the wild.
The work has left the lab. It's first-author at ICPR 2026 and CRV 2025, and it powers Archipelago Marine Research's FishVue platform — which took the 2026 VIATEC Innovative Excellence Award. I teach, too: I'm the instructor for UVic's Medical Image Processing course (ECE 435 / BME 403) this winter, on a $10,000 President's Fellowship in Research-Enriched Teaching.
What I care about is computer vision that survives the messy parts — the open sea, bad light, occlusion, motion blur — not just a clean benchmark. If that sounds like your problem too, let's talk.
Research Interests
Video Understanding
Motion-aware models that reason about events, not just frames.
Privacy-Preserving Perception
Recognizing actions while protecting the identity of people in frame.
Environmental Monitoring AI
Deployable perception for maritime and ecological monitoring.
Medical Image Processing
Robust analysis pipelines for clinical and biomedical imaging.
Publications
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Selected Projects
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Teaching
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Jan–Apr 2026 Course Instructor
ECE 435 / BME 403 – Medical Image Processing, University of Victoria.
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2024–2026 Super Teaching Assistant
ECE 471 – Computer Vision (2024) · ECE 527 – Applied Data Analysis (2025).
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2023–2026 Lab Instructor / Teaching Assistant
University of Victoria. Courses: Control Systems, Digital Design, VLSI Systems, Electronic Circuits, Signals & Systems.
Honors & Awards
$10K
President's Fellowship
Research-Enriched Teaching, 2025.
Top 1%
National BSc Entrance Exam
Ranked in the top 1% nationally.
Top 3%
National MSc Entrance Exam
Ranked in the top 3% nationally.
VIATEC 2026
Industry impact — FishVue
My research feeds Archipelago Marine Research's FishVue — the platform that automates catch and compliance monitoring on commercial fishing vessels. It helped FishVue win the 2026 VIATEC Innovative Excellence Award — computer vision running at sea, in real conditions, not on a benchmark.