Dr. Nikan is an Assistant Professor at Western University specializing in computer vision and AI for autonomous systems. Before joining Western, she worked as an AI Engineer at Ford Motor Company, designing production-level perception and driver-monitoring pipelines. Since 2022, she has built a fast-growing research program in efficient and human-aligned autonomy, secured $700K+ in competitive funding (NSERC Discovery, Alliance, Mitacs, provincial, internal), supervised 50+ HQP. She has published 40+ peer-reviewed papers in top IEEE/Elsevier venues and AI conferences, delivered invited international keynotes, and received national media coverage. Her research program is highly collaborative, with active partnerships with National Research Council (NRC), Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), and industry leaders such as Cyberworks and General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS). Dr. Nikan holds a deep connection to the academic community through her role as Counsellor for IEEE London Section Branch and active participation in the Technical Program Committee of the International Conference on 6G Net and reviewer for distinguished journals in electrical and computer engineering.