Rafia Mumtaz received a Ph.D. in 2010 from the University of Surrey, UK, in the area of remote sensing and satellite image processing. She is currently working as a tenured professor and the director of the NUST Coventry Internet of Things Lab (NCIL) at NUST-SEECS. She is the recipient of several national and international research grants worth PKR 134 million. She was awarded the NUST-SEECS Best Researcher Award in 2019, the Women of Wonder Award in 2021, the university best teacher award in 2022, and the HEC Best University Teacher Award in 2022.