Dr Assaad studied a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering and completed a PhD exploring decision making under uncertainty to support strategic air traffic flow management. Following her studies, she spent some time working in various organisations, working as a liaison officer, bridging the communication between civil and military airspace. Dr Assaad worked on Australia’s first satellite-based augmentation systems project. She also worked as a research specialist with Australia’s aviation regulatory body.

Dr Assaad is currently a senior research fellow within the Aerospace cluster in the School of Engineering. She is also a fellow with the Trusted Autonomous Systems defence cooperative research centre (TAS DCRC). Her research explores the safety implications of human-machine teaming (HMT) operations. She is also the co-host and co-prodcuer of the Algorithmic Futures podcast.

Dr Assaad is a member of the Standards Australia advisory committee ISO/TC 20/SC 16 (UAS) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42/WG 3 Artificial Intelligence.

• UAS traffic management (UTM)
• Human-machine teaming
• Regulation and assurance of autonomous systems 
• Trusted autonomous systems
• Robotics, autonomous systems and AI