Faraz Ahmad Khan

Where are you from?

Pakistan

What do you think of Newcastle and our region and what are your favourite things to do?

The people are great. Everyone is friendly and are lively people. Since this is a student city I tend to find many people of my age group who are into things that I am into as well.  As for what I like most to do in Newcastle is to go on long walks in cloudy weather.

What has surprised you most about living in Newcastle and this region? What has impressed you most?

Well since Newcastle is the only city in UK I have visited I cannot do much of a comparison with other cities or universities. I can however compare it to back home (Peshawar, Pakistan).  So what surprised me most was the cleanliness, and the patience that people had. The politeness in general everyday tasks. Like holding doors open for some one else confused me at first but later found out that it was rude not to hold the door for some one else.

Did you find Northumbria University welcoming? Was it easy to fit in?

Yes very much. I had no one in UK and took a great leap of faith coming here on my own. Northumbria arranged cars to pick us up from the airport and then the Freshers Week was awesome where everything is introduced in an epic way. During freshers week I was introduced to the Muslim community and found out that the University had their own mosque. (I cannot express here how surprised and relieved I was to hear that)

What have you enjoyed most about coming to Northumbria University?

The welcoming environment was great, it really made me feel comfortable and made fitting in into a place or culture I was not familiar with very easy.

Who has helped you most since you came to Northumbria?

There are many people to who I owe thanks for helping me reach where I am today. But I guess if I had to squeeze it down to one person then that person would be my supervisor of my Masters dissertation, Dr. Atif Tahir. He really really showed me the beauty of working in image processing and helped me most when I needed it. It was because of his motivation that I am seeking a future in Image processing.

What is your favourite place on campus?

Definitely the Library Basement. It offers the library study environment without the silent strictness.It's just a great social place when you want to study and relax.

What is the best thing about your course?

Definitely image processing and working with images. Learning new algorithms and methods on how to effectively get the desired result. After all the research and applying that knowledge on my own images and then getting the expected result is a blissful feeling.

What do you want to do in the future? What skills have you learned/improved that you think will be of most use in your future career?

I want to be an academic researcher or a lecturer teaching students how to program using various languages (Verilog, C, C++, Matlab).  The research I do now will help me if I am to become a researcher in the future. And I plan on applying for an assistant lecturer position which will definitely give me plenty of experience.

If you could offer some advice to students thinking of coming to study here what would you say?

Nothing to think about. Just come on over. You will not regret it. The facilities here are epic and the support given to you at every level is there of you need it.

How do you feel you have changed as a person since being at Northumbria University, Newcastle (e.g. confidence)?

It has definitely changed me as a person. My time here helped me considerably in self discovery, showed me that I can achieve anything if I set my mind to it.

If you had 3 words to sum up your time with us what would they be?

Successfull, Helpful, Peaceful

Would you recommend Northumbria University to a friend?

Yes, definitely!

To develop an offline text independent writer identification system using a combination of features and classifiers that is capable of identifying an unknown sample of text with a high degree of confidence.

PhD Project

 Offline Text Independent Writer Identification

To develop an offline text independent writer identification system using a combination of features and classifiers that is capable of identifying an unknown sample of text with a high degree of confidence.

Supervisors

• Dr. Ahmed Bouridane
• Dr. Fouad Khelifi