CV

Work experience

• AI Scientist, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), Qatar — 2022–Present
• Co-Founder & Co-Director, MenaML — 2025–Present

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA — 2014–2021
  • Advisor: Prof. Alexander G. Schwing
  • Thesis: Toward More Scalable Structured Models
  • GPA: 3.8/4.0
• M.S. in Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA — 2013–2014
  • Advisor: Prof. Sandeep Shukla
  • Thesis: Translating Discrete-Time SIMULINK to SIGNAL
  • GPA: 4.0/4.0
• Visiting Researcher / Concurrent Enrollment Student, University of California, Berkeley, USA — 2012–2013
  • Advisors: Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli (UC Berkeley), Prof. Andreas Herkersdorf (TUM)
  • M.S. Thesis: Optimal Architecture Synthesis of Aircraft Electrical Power Systems
  • GPA: 3.85/4.0
• M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Munich, Germany — 2011–2013
  • M.S. thesis conducted at the University of California, Berkeley
  • GPA: 4.0/4.0 (German grade 1.5)
• B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technical University of Munich, Germany — 2008–2011
  • Advisor: Dr. Martin Brischwein
  • Thesis: Validation of a Finite Element Model for Reaction and Diffusion Using Electro-Chemical and Signal-Processing Methods
  • GPA: 4.0/4.0 (German grade 1.3)
• Pre-Engineering School Certificate, Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany — 2007–2008 (GPA 4.0/4.0, German grade 1.0)
• Baccalauréat en Mathématiques, Lycée Pilote de Sfax, Tunisia — 2003–2007 (ranked 6th nationally; GPA 19.54/20)

Internships

• Research Intern, Medical Records Analysis Group, IBM Watson, USA — May–Aug 2016
  • Manager: Dr. Murthy Devarakonda; Mentor: Dr. Ching-Huei Tsou
  • Task: Proposed a novel algorithm for disease-based problem list generation from electronic medical records (U.S. Patent).
• Research Intern, High-Performance Commercial Systems, IBM Research-Tokyo, Japan — May–Aug 2015
  • Manager: Dr. Morioshi Ohara; Mentor: Dr. Takeshi Ogasawara
  • Task: Designed an FPGA-based accelerator for genomic file parsing (SAM → BAM), achieving 10× speedup over a single-threaded software baseline (U.S. Patent).
• Research Intern, Department of Integrated Systems, Technical University of Munich, Germany — Aug–Sep 2012
  • Prof. Andreas Herkersdorf; Mentor: Dr. Ravi Kumar Pujari
  • Task: Designed an FPGA-based monitor aggregator for multicore resource-aware scheduling (“Invasive Computing”).
• Research Intern, Siemens Corporate Technology, Munich, Germany — Mar–May 2011
  • Implemented a MATLAB-based data acquisition system for electric motor testing.
• Intern, Institute of Energy Conversion Systems, TUM, Germany — May–Oct 2010
  • Built the buggy-based electric car eCARus; designed PCBs for the battery management system.
• Intern, Siemens Corporate Technology, Munich, Germany — Jul–Oct 2008

Service and leadership

• (Meta) Reviewer — ECCV, NeurIPS, AAAI, ICLR.
• Co-chair, Machine Learning and Data Science Symposium, QCRI — 2024.
• Judge, The National Scientific Research and Innovation Week, Qatar — 2023.
• Session Chair — Artificial Intelligence in Action, CSL Student Conference, UIUC — 2018.
• Session Chair — Computational Genomics, CSL Student Conference, UIUC — 2017.
• Head of the Children Protection Committee, Children Parliament of Tunisia — 2003–2005.

Languages

• Arabic (fluent), French (fluent), English (fluent), German (fluent)