PhD Scholar at IIITD

Research Interests: Ethical AI, Semantic Web Technologies, Knowledge Representation, LLMs, Neurosymbolic Techniques, Ethical Reasoning, AI Philosophy

Curriculum Vitae

Highlights

• Ph.D. (Computer Science Engineering) scholar at IIITD, working on developing a framework for ethical cognition in AI decision-making systems using a neurosymbolic approach. Currently in the 5th year of study, expecting to graduate early 2026.
• Research interests include general cognition in AI systems, trustworthy and morally-aligned AI, semantic web technologies, ontology development, knowledge graphs and representation, neurosymbolic techniques, LLMs, NLP, general ML/AI, and applied and normative ethical philosophy.
• Seven years of research, teaching, and industry experience in AI, data science, and data analytics.
• Research projects include the development of an ontology with important relevant axioms that is able to capture contextual information and applied ethics using explicit entities and relationships. These can help build a discrete structure that may support dilemma resolution in applied ethics via logical reasoning and inference. Real-world use case modeling for evaluation of the ontology and building an augmented dataset for neurosymbolic applications like case-based reasoning to emulate casuistry, leveraging LLMs. The development of rules for an algorithm for ethics judgement based on important ethical principles developed for reasoning and querying to analyze ethics in action-based scenarios. The extrapolation of a financial risk-averse metric to avoid high negative utility outcomes for improved ethical competence in machine learning models which show results at par with models with only domain-based parametric classifications. An analysis of tradeoffs between higher ethical competence versus higher overall domain-specific performance has also been conducted, in addition to the consideration of other relevant factors.
• Further work involves the extension of current proposed resources and methods for morally aligned and consistent LLMs to reduce abstraction in responses related to philosophical concepts. Additionally, the vision for this strand of research is to explore questions such as how moral knowledge can be represented probabilistically to model moral uncertainty, how learning algorithms may be used to preserve interpretability of moral decisions, and how high moral risk may be operationalized as a differentiable constraint when learning.

Education

PhD in Computer Science Engineering (Aug 2021 - Present)

• Thesis Title: Frameworks for Ethical Cognition in AI: Rule-Based, Data-Driven, and Algorithmic Approaches
• CGPA: 8.54/10
• Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi

M.Sc. in Data Science

• Qualified with Distinction
• Heriot-Watt University

B.Tech. in Computer Engineering

• CGPA 8.82/10
• Jamia Millia Islamia

Research Publications and Projects

Ongoing:

Ethics Fine-tuning in Transformer-based Models for Moral Dilemma Resolution, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju, M. Kumar.

Value-Based Ontology Engineering (VBOE): A Methodology for Value Alignment in Ontology Development, S. Gulati, V. Aggarwal, R. Mutharaju, A. Aijaz.

Case-based Reasoning for Ethical Theory Application, R. Goel, A. Batra, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju.

A Survey on Techniques to Discretize Ethical Decision-making, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju.

Completed:

ApplE: An Applied Ethics Ontology for Autonomous Moral Decision-making, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju, M. Kumar, (Under review at JAIR, AI and Society Track).

Expected Moral Shortfall for Ethical Competence in Decision-making Models, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju, M. Kumar.

Moral Compass: A Data-Driven Benchmark for Ethical Cognition in AI, A. Aijaz, A. Batra, A. Bazaz, S. Srinivasan, R. Mutharaju, M, Kumar, (Accepted at IJCAI 2025).

Contesting Artificial Moral Agents, A. Aijaz, (Accepted at the ACM CSCW 2024, Workshop on Contestability Along AI Value Chains).

Bridging Ethics and AI: A Path to Moral Machines, A. Aijaz, (Accepted at AAAI/ACM AIES, 2024).

An Ontology to Capture Contextual Information to Facilitate Ethical Decision-making in AI Systems, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju, M. Kumar, O. Chattar, J. Shukla, (Accepted at ACM IKDD CODS-COMAD, 2024).

ApplE: An Applied Ethics Ontology to capture Ethical Theory and Contextual Information, A. Aijaz, R. Mutharaju, M. Kumar; See full documentation and GitHub Repository for more information.

Opacity, Transparency, and the Ethics of Affective Computing, M. Kumar, A. Aijaz, O. Chattar, J. Shukla, and R. Mutharaju. (Published at the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, Special Issue on Ethics in Affective Computing 2023).

A Comparative Study on Approaches to OCR for Varied Scripts, Master’s Thesis under the supervision of Dr. Hind Zantout. Heriot-Watt University, 2019.

Cryptanalysis of Image Cryptosystem Using Synchronized 4D Lorenz Stenflo Hyper-chaotic Systems, M. Ahmad, A. Aijaz, S. Ansari, M. Siddiqui, and S. Masood. Published in Information and Decision Sciences, AISC, Vol. 701, Springer, 2018.

Work Experience

• Teaching Assistant at IIITD for Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA), Ethical AI Systems, Operating Systems (OS) as Head TA. (Aug 2022 - Present).
• Visiting Intern at MBZUAI, Abu Dhabi. (Feb 2025).
• Intern at WSL Labs, IIIT-Bangalore. (Nov 2024 - Jan 2025).
• Data Specialist at Gulf Researcher. (July 2021 - Jan 2022).
• Data Analyst, VLCC Beauty and Wellness (GCC HQ), Dubai, UAE. (May-Oct 2019).
• Research Assistant associated with the University of Bahrain, Royal University of Women, and Arab Gulf University. (Feb 2021-July 2021).
• Private Instructor - Subjects include Data Science, High-Performance Computing, Big Data Analytics, Data Mining, and Research Methods. (Dec 2020 - Sept 2021).

Awards and Recognition

• Student Travel Grant Award, IJCAI 2025.
• Selected Attendee with Travel Grant, ACM Pingala Interactions in Computing, 2025.
• Travel Grant Award, AAAI/ACM AIES 2024.
• Travel Grant Award, IndoML, 2024.
• Best Poster Award for work titled “Neurosymbolic AI for Applied Ethics,” at Women in Data Science Conference (WiDS) in Association with Mastercard AI Garage, 2024.
• Invited as Panel Member at Heriot-Watt University Alumni Meet-up with the theme “Navigating the Future: AI’s Impact on Workforce Dynamics, Career, and the Evolving Workplace”, 2024.
• Anveshan Setu Fellow, ACM India, 2024.
• Doctoral Consortium (PhD Clinic), ACM IKDD CODS-COMAD, 2023.
• Travel Grant Award, ACM IKDD CODS-COMAD, 2023.
• Travel Grant Award, Google Research Week, 2022.
• Chanakya Fellow, iHub Anubhuti, 2021-2024.

Research Service

• Invited Reviewer: Data and Knowledge Engineering Journal and NeSy 2026.
• PC Member: K-CAP 2025, NeSy 2025, ACM WWW 2025 (Demo Track and Short Paper Track).
• Reviewer: AAAI 2026, AAAI 2025, NLP4HR/EACL 2024, ICON 2022.
• Sub-reviewer: WWW 2024, NeSy 2024, CIKM 2023, BDA 2023.

Technical Skills

• Software Development: Python, Java, R, C++, C, Prolog, C#, MATLAB
• Semantic Web Technologies: Protege, SWRL
• Database Management: Advanced MS Excel, MySQL
• Business Intelligence Software: MS-Power BI
• Quantitative Research: SPSS, Smart PLS (SEM)

Certifications

• Responsible AI Tour, CODE, IIT Madras
• Understanding Research Methods, University of London
• Using IBM SPSS for Research, Certified for IBM Business Analytics Software
• Business Analytics Specialization, Rice University
• Data Analytics Training, IIT Alumni Venture
• Algorithmic Optimization, Scientific Computation, and their Applications in Science and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia
• Advanced Content and Social Tactics to Optimize SEO, University of California, Davis
• Cyber Security and Ethical Hacking, Bytecode Academy

Community Service and Memberships

• Volunteer at IEEE-Women in Engineering (IEEE-WIE)
• Member, Bahrain Statistical Society (BSS)
• Member, Computer Society of India (CSI-JMI Chapter)
• Volunteer, Association for Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences (AIESEC)
• Editor-in-Chief, Fiction Magazine, JMI CSE (2018)
• Volunteer, Black-belt trainer, Indo-International Taekwondo Academy, New Delhi