Shirin Shoushtari

Hello!
I'm Shirin!
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I am a ESE Ph.D. candidate at
Washington Univeristy in St. Louis
I love classical music, books, movies, and languages.

About Me

Shirin Shoushtari

Hi I'm Shirin, from Iran! I am a PhD candidate at Washington Univeristy in St. Louis, advised by Prof. Ulugbek S. Kamilov. My research lies at the intersection of

Computational Imaging
Inverse Problems
Generative Models
Out-of-Distribution
Optimization.

I am particularly interested in understanding the behavior of learning-based reconstruction methods, including generative and diffusion models, and in developing methods that are reliable under model mismatch and distribution shift. My work combines mathematical analysis with practical algorithmic development, and is motivated by applications in computational and medical imaging.

Outside of research, I enjoy reading—especially literature, classical works, and philosophy—as well as classical music and film. I also enjoy learning languages and exploring different cultural perspectives.

keep going

Recent News

October 2025 | Talk

I will be giving a talk at Asilomar 2025.

October 2025 | Journal paper

Our paper “Closed-Form Approximation of the Total Variation Proximal Operator” has been accepted for publication in IEEE TCI.

September 2025 | Preprint

Our paper “EigenScore: OOD Detection using Covariance in Diffusion Models” is out!

September 2025 | Preprint

Our paper “Moments Matter: Posterior Recovery in Poisson Denoising via Log-Networks” is out!

September 2025 | Preprint

Our paper “Analysis Plug-and-Play Methods for Imaging Inverse Problems” is out!

May 2025 | Preprint

Our paper “Unsupervised Detection of Distribution Shift in Inverse Problems using Diffusion Models” is out!

Februray 2025 | Conference paper

Our paper “FLAIR: A Conditional Diffusion Framework with Applications to Face Video Restoration” is accpetd to WACV 2025.

May 2024 | Conference paper

Our paper “Prior Mismatch and Adaptation in PnP-ADMM with a Nonconvex Convergence Analysis” is accepted to ICML 2024.

September 2024 | Conference paper

Our paper “Block Coordinate Plug-and-Play Methods for Blind Inverse Problems” is accepted to NeurIPS 2024.

December 2023 | Conference paper

Our paper “Convergence of Nonconvex PnP-ADMM with MMSE Denoisers” is selected as a Finalist for the Best Paper Award at CAMSAP 2023.

March 2022 | Milestone

I joined the CIG Lab at Washington University as a Ph.D. student.

January 2022 | Milestone

I started my Ph.D. in Electrical and Systems Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

Citations

Papers

Talks

Books Read (This Year)

My Publications

Shirin Shoushtari, Yi Wang, Xiao Shi, M. Salman Asif, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"EigenScore: OOD Detection using Covariance in Diffusion Models"

arXiv preprint. [arXiv] [code]

Shirin Shoushtari, Edward P. Chandler, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Moments Matter: Posterior Recovery in Poisson Denoising via Log-Networks"

arXiv preprint. [arXiv]

Edward P. Chandler, Shirin Shoushtari, Brendt Wohlberg, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Analysis Plug-and-Play Methods for Imaging Inverse Problems"

arXiv preprint. [arXiv]

Shirin Shoushtari, Edward P. Chandler, M. Salman Asif, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Unsupervised Detection of Distribution Shift in Inverse Problems using Diffusion Models"

arXiv preprint. [arXiv] [Project] [code]

Edward P. Chandler, Shirin Shoushtari, Brendt Wohlberg, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Closed-Form Approximation of the Total Variation Proximal Operator"

IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging (TCI). [arXiv] [IEEE]

Chicago Y. Park, Shirin Shoushtari, Hongyu An, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Measurement Score-Based Diffusion Model"

arXiv preprint. [arXiv] [project] [code]

Zihao Zou, Jiaming Liu, Shirin Shoushtari, Yubo Wang, Weijie Gan, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"FLAIR: A Conditional Diffusion Framework with Applications to Face Video Restoration"

IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV 2025). [arXiv] [IEEE] [project] [code]

Shirin Shoushtari*, Jiaming Liu*, Edward P. Chandler, M. Salman Asif, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Prior Mismatch and Adaptation in PnP-ADMM with a Nonconvex Convergence Analysis"

International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2024). [arXiv] [PMLR] [project] [code]

Shirin Shoushtari, Edward P. Chandler, Jialiang Zhang, Manjula Senanayake, Sai Venkatesh Pingali, Marcus Foston, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"PnP Restoration with Domain Adaptation for SANS"

arXiv preprint. [arXiv]

Juanita Hernandez Lopez, Zhixin Sun, Shirin Shoushtari, Ulugbek S. Kamilov, Debbie Bennett, Aimilia Gastounioti
"Long-term Breast Cancer Risk Prediction in Black Women: External Validation of a Mammography-driven AI Model"

Cancer Research (AACR), 2024. [AACR]

Zihao Zou, Shirin Shoushtari, Jiaming Liu, Jialiang Zhang, Patrick Judge, Emilia Santana, Alison Lim, Marcus Foston, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"TVCondNet: A Conditional Denoising Neural Network for NMR Spectroscopy"

arXiv preprint, 2024. [arXiv]

Weijie Gan, Shirin Shoushtari, Yuyang Hu, Jiaming Liu, Hongyu An, Ulugbek Kamilov
"Block Coordinate Plug-and-Play Methods for Blind Inverse Problems"

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023). [arXiv] [NeurIPS] [project] [code]

Weijie Gan, Shirin Shoushtari, Yuyang Hu, Jiaming Liu, Hongyu An, Ulugbek Kamilov
"Block Coordinate Plug-and-Play Methods for Blind Inverse Problems"

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2023). [arXiv] [NeurIPS] [project] [code]

Edward P. Chandler, Shirin Shoushtari, Jiaming Liu, M. Salman Asif, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Convergence of Nonconvex PnP-ADMM with MMSE Denoisers"

IEEE International Workshop on Computational Advances in Multi-Sensor Adaptive Processing (CAMSAP 2023). [arXiv] [IEEE]

Chicago Y. Park*, Shirin Shoushtari*, Weijie Gan, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Convergence of Nonconvex PnP-ADMM with MMSE Denoisers"

IEEE International Workshop on Computational Advances in Multi-Sensor Adaptive Processing (CAMSAP 2023). [arXiv] [IEEE] [project]

Shirin Shoushtari, Jiaming Liu, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Diffusion Models for Phase Retrieval in Computational Imaging"

Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (Asilomar 2023). [arXiv] [IEEE]

Junhao Hu*, Shirin Shoushtari*, Zihao Zou, Jiaming Liu, Zhixin Sun, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Robustness of Deep Equilibrium Architectures to Changes in the Measurement Model"

IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2023). [arXiv] [IEEE]

Jiaming Liu, Xiaojian Xu, Weijie Gan, Shirin Shoushtari, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Online Deep Equilibrium Learning for Regularization by Denoising"

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2022). [arXiv] [NeurIPS] [code]

Shirin Shoushtari, Jiaming Liu, Yuyang Hu, Ulugbek S. Kamilov
"Deep Model-based Architectures for Inverse Problems under Mismatched Priors"

IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory (JSAIT 2022). [arXiv] [IEEE] [project]

Shirin Shoushtari, Hoda Mohammadzadeh, Arash Amini
"Emotion Recognition Using Sparse Graph Analysis of Brain Connectivity"

IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Engineering (ICBME 2021). [IEEE]

My background

Education, Research, Teaching

Education

Ph.D. in Electrical and Systems Engineering

Washington University in St. Louis, 2022–2026 (expected)

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

Sharif University of Technology, 2018–2021

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Sharif University of Technology, 2012–2017

Professional Services

Journal Reviewer

IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (TSP)
IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging (TCI)
IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging (TMI)
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS)
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (J-STSP)
IEEE Signal Processing Letters

Conference Reviewer

IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS)
International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP)
Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
International Symposium on Computational Sensing (ISCS)

Research Mentoring and Teaching Experience

Student Mentees

Washington Univeristy in St. Louis

Xiao Shi, Ph.D. at UW-Madison
Kevin Wang, Bachelor of CSE at WashU
Weining Wang, Master of CSE at WashU

Teaching Assistant

Washington University in St. Louis

Signals & Systems, 2025
Optimization, 2023

Sharif University of Technology

Statistical Learning, 2018

Honors & Awards

Highlights

Awards & Honors

IEEE CAMSAP Student Paper Award Finalist (2023)
Dean’s Honorary Award, Sharif Univeristy of Technology (2014)
National Elite Foundation Fellow, Iran (2012)

Academic Distinction

National University Entrance Exam (Iran): Top 0.01% (B.Sc., 2012)
National University Entrance Exam (Iran): Top 0.1% (M.Sc., 2018)

Service Recognition

Top Reviewer, NeurIPS (2024)
Top Reviewer, NeurIPS (2025)

Books & Movies

Books

"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig." – Marcus Aurelius

Contact Me

Get in Touch!