Published on 19/09/2025 by Research Scientist Mrs. Venus Haghighi | Computer Science | Best Researcher Award Research Associate | Macquarie University | Australia Mrs. Venus Haghighi is a final-year PhD candidate in Computer Science at Macquarie University, Sydney, focusing on artificial intelligence, data science, and graph learning techniques for fraud detection in complex networks. She holds a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology, where she worked on mobile cloud computing, and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, where she researched AES cryptography. Her professional experience includes serving as a data science researcher at the Intelligent Computing Laboratory, where she develops advanced graph neural networks, hypergraph models, and large language model enhanced frameworks for detecting camouflaged malicious actors. She has also contributed as a sessional teaching associate in both the School of Computing and the Business School at Macquarie University, teaching subjects such as cybersecurity, data science, and information systems. Her research interests span graph neural networks, hypergraph learning, graph transformer networks, graph representation learning, and the integration of LLMs with graph-based methods for real-world applications. She has published in leading venues such as IEEE ICDM, ACM WSDM, ACM CIKM, IJCAI, and ACM Web Conference, along with journal contributions in IEEE Transactions and IEEE Access. Her achievements include the Google Conference Travel Grant, HDR Research Rising Star Award, 3MT Thesis Competition recognition, DF-CRC PhD Top-Up Scholarship, and the Pro-Vice Chancellor Research Excellence Scholarship. She is skilled in Python, PyTorch, PyTorch Geometric, Deep Graph Library, data visualization, and advanced AI model design. Her research impact is evidenced by 150 citations across 13 documents with an h-index of 4. Profile: Google Scholar Featured Publications 1. Soltani, B., Haghighi, V., Mahmood, A., Sheng, Q. Z., & Yao, L. (2022). A survey on participant selection for federated learning in mobile networks. Proceedings of the 17th ACM Workshop on Mobility in the Evolving Internet Architecture (MobiArch). 2. Haghighi, V., & Moayedian, N. S. (2018). An offloading strategy in mobile cloud computing considering energy and delay constraints. IEEE Access, 6, 11849–11861. 3. Shabani, N., Wu, J., Beheshti, A., Sheng, Q. Z., Foo, J., Haghighi, V., Hanif, A., & … (2024). A comprehensive survey on graph summarization with graph neural networks. IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, 5(8), 3780–3800. 4. Soltani, B., Zhou, Y., Haghighi, V., & Lui, J. (2023). A survey of federated evaluation in federated learning. Proceedings of the Thirty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). 5. Shabani, N., Beheshti, A., Jolfaei, A., Wu, J., Haghighi, V., Najafabadi, M. K., & Foo, J. (2024). Attention-based graph summarization for large-scale information retrieval. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, 70(3), 6224–6235. Venus Haghighi | Computer Science | Best Researcher Award
Mrs. Venus Haghighi is a final-year PhD candidate in Computer Science at Macquarie University, Sydney, focusing on artificial intelligence, data science, and graph learning techniques for fraud detection in complex networks. She holds a master’s degree in Computer Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology, where she worked on mobile cloud computing, and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, where she researched AES cryptography. Her professional experience includes serving as a data science researcher at the Intelligent Computing Laboratory, where she develops advanced graph neural networks, hypergraph models, and large language model enhanced frameworks for detecting camouflaged malicious actors. She has also contributed as a sessional teaching associate in both the School of Computing and the Business School at Macquarie University, teaching subjects such as cybersecurity, data science, and information systems. Her research interests span graph neural networks, hypergraph learning, graph transformer networks, graph representation learning, and the integration of LLMs with graph-based methods for real-world applications. She has published in leading venues such as IEEE ICDM, ACM WSDM, ACM CIKM, IJCAI, and ACM Web Conference, along with journal contributions in IEEE Transactions and IEEE Access. Her achievements include the Google Conference Travel Grant, HDR Research Rising Star Award, 3MT Thesis Competition recognition, DF-CRC PhD Top-Up Scholarship, and the Pro-Vice Chancellor Research Excellence Scholarship. She is skilled in Python, PyTorch, PyTorch Geometric, Deep Graph Library, data visualization, and advanced AI model design. Her research impact is evidenced by 150 citations across 13 documents with an h-index of 4. Profile: Google Scholar Featured Publications 1. Soltani, B., Haghighi, V., Mahmood, A., Sheng, Q. Z., & Yao, L. (2022). A survey on participant selection for federated learning in mobile networks. Proceedings of the 17th ACM Workshop on Mobility in the Evolving Internet Architecture (MobiArch). 2. Haghighi, V., & Moayedian, N. S. (2018). An offloading strategy in mobile cloud computing considering energy and delay constraints. IEEE Access, 6, 11849–11861. 3. Shabani, N., Wu, J., Beheshti, A., Sheng, Q. Z., Foo, J., Haghighi, V., Hanif, A., & … (2024). A comprehensive survey on graph summarization with graph neural networks. IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, 5(8), 3780–3800. 4. Soltani, B., Zhou, Y., Haghighi, V., & Lui, J. (2023). A survey of federated evaluation in federated learning. Proceedings of the Thirty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). 5. Shabani, N., Beheshti, A., Jolfaei, A., Wu, J., Haghighi, V., Najafabadi, M. K., & Foo, J. (2024). Attention-based graph summarization for large-scale information retrieval. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, 70(3), 6224–6235.