24 Young Geospatial Professionals to Watch in 2024

Company: Aren, Inc.  
Current position: CEO and co-founder
Age: 36
Education: Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University; PhD. Philosophy, George Mason University; MS, Tufts University, BS, Tehran University

Dr. Ali Khaloo stands at the helm of Aren as its visionary CEO and co-founder. His journey began with the completion of his Ph.D., followed by a prestigious appointment as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University’s esteemed Runway Startup program on the Cornell Tech campus in New York City—the birthplace of Aren.

With nearly 12 years of immersion in autonomous sensing, geospatial data analysis, and intelligent condition assessment of civil structures, Khaloo boasts a distinctive prowess. His groundbreaking integration of computer vision and machine learning with civil engineering forms the bedrock of Aren’s revolutionary software platform. Khaloo’s transformative work has touched iconic bridges, dams, airport runways, cooling towers, and structures worldwide.

Prior to Aren, Khaloo was a senior research scientist in a venture capital-backed startup. He led the charge in crafting cutting-edge deep-learning algorithms tailored for real-time object detection on devices with restricted computational resources, a feat particularly crucial for smartphones.

Khaloo’s intellectual footprint includes more than 20 papers published in influential international journals and conference proceedings. Additionally, he is the inventor of three patents on generating and analyzing 3D models of large civil infrastructure systems using AI.