Welcome to my homepage!

I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at Utah State University (USU). Prior to joining USU, I was a Research Associate at Clemson University, where I also earned my Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

My research focuses on advancing robust multimodal perception and reasoning through vision-language and multimodal foundation models. I develop methods for efficient model adaptation, generalization under distribution shifts, and evidence-grounded multimodal reasoning. My goal is to build trustworthy multimodal intelligence that operates reliably under uncertainty, limited supervision, and challenging real-world conditions.

🚀 Interested in Joining AIM Lab?

If you are interested in research in computer vision and multimodal AI and would like to join AIM Lab, please email your CV and transcript to nila.alipourtalemi@usu.edu.

Research Interests

Core Areas:

Application Domains:

News



Talks

Generalizable Vision-Language Models (University of Louisville) Slides
Attribute-aware Attentional Network for Face Recognition
Women in AI Event Link

Multimodal Foundation Models and Efficient Adaptation Techniques Slides



Academic Service

It has been an honor to serve as a reviewer for over 100 papers across prestigious academic conferences and journals in computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and biomedical computing.

Conferences:

Journals:



Publications



Image of SAMPLe Paper
SAMPLe: A Sharpness Aware Minimization based Optimizer for Prompt Learning in Vision-Language Models.
H Rajoli, F Lotfi, NA Talemi, et al.
European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), 2026.
arxiv

We propose SAMPLe, a model-agnostic sharpness-aware optimizer that improves prompt generalization in vision-language models by dynamically balancing exploration and exploitation based on local loss curvature and gradient properties.

Image of Hyper-ICL Paper
Hyper-ICL: Attention Calibration with Hyperbolic Anchor Distillation for Multimodal In-Context Learning.
NA Talemi, H Kashiani, F Afghah
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2026.
arxiv / Poster/ Slides

We propose Hyper-ICL, a lightweight framework for demonstration-free multimodal in-context learning that reconstructs demonstration effects through logit-level attention calibration, query-adaptive modulation, and layer-wise hyperbolic anchor distillation.

Image of WildFireVQA Paper
WildFireVQA: A Large-Scale Radiometric Thermal VQA Benchmark for Aerial Wildfire Monitoring.
M Habibpour, NA Talemi, J Spodnik, CJ Khoury, F Afghah
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPR-W), 2026.
arxiv / code

We introduce WildFireVQA, the first visual question answering benchmark designed specifically for aerial wildfire monitoring. Built on aligned RGB images, color-mapped thermal visualizations, and radiometric thermal TIFFs, WildFireVQA enables temperature-grounded multimodal reasoning for safety-critical wildfire intelligence, including fire detection, hotspot localization, cross-modal interpretation, and UAV flight planning.

Image of Agentic Paper
Agentic AI in Remote Sensing: Foundations, Taxonomy, and Emerging Systems.
NA Talemi, J Boone, F Afghah
Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, GeoCV Workshop, 2026.
arxiv / CVF / Video

We present the first comprehensive survey of agentic AI in remote sensing, defining a unified taxonomy of single- and multi-agent systems and outlining how planning, tool use, and memory enable autonomous geospatial intelligence beyond static models.

Image of Style-Pro Paper
DiSa: Directional Saliency-Aware Prompt Learning for Generalizable Vision-Language Models.
NA Talemi, H Kashiani, H Rajoli, F Afghah
ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), 2025.
arxiv / ACM / Poster

We propose a novel directional saliency-aware prompt learning framework designed to enhance the adaptability and generalization of vision-language models.

Image of FreqDebias Paper
FreqDebias: Towards Generalizable Deepfake Detection via Consistency-Driven Frequency Debiasing.
H Kashiani, NA Talemi , F Afghah
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2025.
CVF / IEEE / Poster

We propose FreqDebias, a frequency debiasing framework that mitigates spectral bias in deepfake detection through Forgery Mixup augmentation and dual consistency regularization, improving cross-domain generalization.

Image of Style-Pro Paper
Style-Pro: Style-Guided Prompt Learning for Generalizable Vision-Language Models.
NA Talemi, H Kashiani, F Afghah
IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2025.
arxiv / CVF / IEEE / Poster

We propose a style-guided prompt learning framework to enhance generalization in Vision-Language models.

Image of ROADS Paper
ROADS: Robust Prompt-driven Multi-Class Anomaly Detection under Domain Shift.
H Kashiani, NA Talemi , F Afghah
IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2025.
arxiv / CVF / IEEE / Poster

We propose a robust multi-class anomaly detection framework with a class-aware prompt integration mechanism to mitigate inter-class interference and a domain adapter to handle domain shifts.

CATFace
CATFace: Cross-Attribute-Guided Transformer With Self-Attention Distillation for Low-Quality Face Recognition.
NA Talemi, H Kashiani, NM Nasrabadi
IEEE Transactions on Biometrics, Behavior, and Identity Science, 2024.
arxiv / IEEE / bibtex

We propose a novel multi-branch neural network with cross-attribute-guided fusion and self-attention distillation, improving face recognition in low-quality images using soft biometric attributes.

AAFACE AAFACE: Attribute-aware Attentional Network for Face Recognition.
NA Talemi , H Kashiani, and 4 more authors
IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), 2023.
arxiv / IEEE / bibtex / Poster

We present a multi-branch network using attribute-aware integration to enhance face recognition through soft biometric prediction.

Morph Attack Detection
Towards Generalizable Morph Attack Detection with Consistency Regularization.
H Kashiani, NA Talemi, NM Nasrabadi
IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB), 2023.
arxiv / IEEE / bibtex / Poster / code

We propose consistency regularization to enhance the generalization of morph attack detection through morph-wise augmentations to enhance robustness against unseen morph attacks in biometric systems.

Face Quality Vector Face Image Quality Vector Assessment for Biometrics Applications.
N Najafzadeh, H Kashiani, MSE Saadabadi, NA Talemi, and 2 more authors
Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision, 2023.
CVF / IEEE / bibtex

This paper proposes a multi-task neural network that generates a face quality vector, including nuisance factors, offering improved performance and detailed feedback for face image quality assessment.

brain tumor Superpixel-based brain tumor segmentation in MR images using an extended local fuzzy active contour model.
NA Talemi, RPR Hasanzadeh
Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2021.
Springer / bibtex

This paper introduces a novel region-based fuzzy active contour model, leveraging curve evolution techniques, for brain tumor segmentation in magnetic resonance images, effectively addressing challenges arising from noise and heterogeneity.