News

June 2021

• 

  Viruses as communication molecules

  1 min read · Sun, Jun 27 2021

  News

  Computer science human health pathogens modeling

  Electrical and computer engineers take on complex modeling questions that can further our understanding of virus spread in small spaces.
• 

  SDAIA, KAUST sign MoU to develop AI research and innovation in Saudi Arabia

  1 min read · Wed, Jun 9 2021

  News

  artificial intelligence

  Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have signed a memorandum of understanding to unite efforts to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) research and modern technologies in the Kingdom. The MoU was signed by the CEO of the National Center for Artificial Intelligence, the innovative arm of SDAIA, Dr. Majid Al-Tuwaijri, and by KAUST President, Professor Tony Chan, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday. The MoU supports science and technology research and improves its quality
• 

  The IEEE CS Global Student Challenge seeks top KAUST CS talent

  1 min read · Wed, Jun 9 2021

  News

  big data Computer science

  The annual IEEE Computer Society Global Student Challenge provides an avenue for students worldwide to create innovative solutions to big data problems. This year’s competition, IEEE CS GSC 2021, encourages each individual or team (max three students) to present solutions to pre-determined problem/issue statement of relevance in CS today.
• 

  KAUST VCC research scientist appointed as Associate Editor of leading IEEE journal

  1 min read · Thu, Jun 3 2021

  News

  Laurent Condat, a research scientist based in the KAUST Visual Computing Center, has recently been appointed as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (TSP). The peer-reviewed journal covers novel theory, algorithms, performance analyses, and applications of techniques for the processing, understanding, learning, retrieval, mining, and extraction of information from signals.

May 2021

• 

  Dr. Ivan Viola has been promoted to the rank of Professor

  1 min read · Tue, May 25 2021

  News

  We are proudly announcing that Dr. Ivan Viola has been promoted to the rank of Professor.
• 

  KAUST Ph.D. Student receives 2020 Ilya Segalovich Scientific Prize for Young Researchers

  1 min read · Mon, May 10 2021

  News

  KAUST Ph.D. student Dmitry Kovalev has been named one of nine recipients of the 2020 Ilya Segalovich Scientific Prize for Young Researchers. Awarded by the Russian multinational corporation Yandex, Dmitry received the accolade for his “significant advances in computer science.”
• 

  Forging a career through interdisciplinarity

  1 min read · Tue, May 4 2021

  News

  The foundation of building a successful academic career is generally thought to be the pursuit of excellence through specialization. Of course, the cross-disciplinary quest has its important place, but it's often thought of primarily as the fruitful collaboration between specialized entities or experts in particular fields.

April 2021

• 

  Meet New KAUST Student: Juan C. Pérez

  1 min read · Tue, Apr 13 2021

  News

  Juan C. Pérez is a biomedical engineering graduate from Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia, who joined KAUST in January 2021. Juan first came to KAUST as an intern and was amazed by its excellent research atmosphere, environment, and resources. These factors served as an impetus in choosing KAUST as the destination to further his academic career.
• 

  Machine learning at speed

  1 min read · Mon, Apr 12 2021

  News

  machine learning artificial intelligence big data Computer science

  Optimizing network communication accelerates training in large-scale machine-learning models.

March 2021

• 

  First joint publication between KAUST and MBSC seeks to improve treatment options for chronic kidney disease in Saudi Arabia

  1 min read · Tue, Mar 9 2021

  News

  healthcare genomic data Biomedical Signal Processing organ transplantation kidney exchange program

  Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is among the most common causes of death in Saudi Arabia. According to the 2018 edition of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s annual Financing Global Health report, the prevalence of CKD among the Kingdom’s general population stands at 5.44% and accounts for a 4.04% mortality rate.
• 

  Meet KAUST New Student: Zhenwei Tang

  1 min read · Sun, Mar 7 2021

  News

  Zhenwei Tang, a telecommunications graduate from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China, joined KAUST in January 2021. Tang joined KAUST as a M.S./Ph.D. candidate and member of the Machine Intelligence & kNowledge Engineering (MINE) Lab under the supervision of Professor Xianglinag Zhang.

February 2021

• 

  ECRC contributions to SIAM CSE21

  1 min read · Sat, Feb 27 2021

  News

  research conference HPC computational science and engineering

  ECRC @ SIAM CSE21! Follow us @KAUST_ECRC As in previous SIAM conferences on Parallel Processing (PP) and Computational Science and Engineering (CSE), ECRC members and their collaborators will have a strong presence at SIAM CSE21, nominally in Fort Worth, Texas, but held virtually due to the pandemic. ************************************************** SIAM CSE21 will run virtually with live sessions. ************************************************** Registration to SIAM CSE is required to gain access to the online platform and attend live sessions. Once registered, please use your personal
• 

  CEMSE New Faculty: Suhaib Fahmy, Associate Professor, Computer Science

  1 min read · Sun, Feb 21 2021

  News

  Suhaib Fahmy joins KAUST as an associate professor of computer science and the principal investigator of the KAUST Accelerated Connected Computing Laboratory (ACCL). Fahmy’s research explores novel ways to integrate accelerated computation and communication to achieve improved efficiency, latency, and security in computing systems — improvements he deems key considerations as computing continues to pervade all aspects of our lives.
• 

  CEMSE New Faculty: Di Wang, Assistant Professor of Computer Science

  1 min read · Wed, Feb 17 2021

  News

  Di Wang, assistant professor of computer science, joined KAUST in January 2021 to take up his new role as principal investigator of the KAUST Privacy-Awareness, Responsibility and Trustworthy (PART) Lab. Wang’s research interests include machine learning (ML), security, theoretical computer science, and data mining.
• 

  New Book of Postdoc Michal Mankowski and Professor Mikhail Moshkov is published by Springer

  1 min read · Tue, Feb 16 2021

  News

  New book "Dynamic Programming Multi-Objective Combinatorial Optimization" by Michal Mankowski and Mikhail Moshkov is published by Springer.
• 

  Cloud simulations get a dose of realism

  1 min read · Mon, Feb 15 2021

  News

  big data visual computing computation Computer science

  A focus on the fundamental physics of cloud formation leads to highly realistic simulations of different types of clouds.

January 2021

• 

  First 3D Visualizations of SARS-CoV-2 Cryo-EM Tomography Data

  1 min read · Sun, Jan 31 2021

  News

  visual computing Computer science

  Together with our partners from Tsinghua University and Nanographics, our group has succeeded in depicting the first 3D visualizations of Cryo-EM microscopy tomography directly from the data. We are advancing the technology to allow for clear, noise-free visualization of this challenging data modality. Once we succeed with that our next challenge is to integrate such 3D visualization into the structural modeling process. Stay tuned!
• 

  Simulating evolution to understand a hidden switch

  1 min read · Sun, Jan 17 2021

  News

  genomics Computer science computation epigenetics

  Some organisms evolve an internal switch that can remain hidden for generations until stress flicks it on.
• 

  CEMSE New Faculty: Paulo Esteves-Veríssimo, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering

  1 min read · Sun, Jan 17 2021

  News

  Professor Paulo Esteves-Veríssimo joins KAUST from the University of Luxembourg (UNILU), where he served as FNR PEARL Chair of UNILU’s Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine and Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust. He joins KAUST as the director of the recently established KAUST Resilient Computing and Cybersecurity Center (RC3).
• 

  Ferrofluid surface simulations go more than skin deep

  1 min read · Sun, Jan 10 2021

  News

  algorithms visual computing Computer science

  Computer models efficiently and accurately simulate the magnetic responses of ferrofluids by considering only the fluid’s surface.
• 

  Xin Gao promoted to rank of professor

  1 min read · Thu, Jan 7 2021

  News

  Computer science machine learning bioinformatics

  Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC) would like to congratulate Xin Gao for being promoted to the rank of Professor, effective January 1, 2021. Prof. Gao joined KAUST in October 2010 and became a CBRC PI in January 2013. He has since then produced tremendous work in the areas of computational biology, bioinformatics, machine learning, and algorithms. Dr. Xin Gao is also the Acting Associate Director of the Computational Bioscience Research Center and the lead of the Structural and Functional Bioinformatics Group at KAUST. Prior to joining KAUST, he was a Lane Fellow at Lane Center
• 

  CEMSE Student Research Excellence Awards and Student Academic Accomplishment Awards winners announced

  1 min read · Tue, Jan 5 2021

  News Spotlight

  student research excellence awards

  The annual CEMSE Student Research Excellence Awards and Student Academic Accomplishment Awards celebrate the talent and achievements of the Division's students. Awarded around the KAUST Commencement ceremony, the awards are presented in recognition of the academic accomplishments and research impact created by our leading students in the fields of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science (AMCS), Computer Science (CS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and Statistics (STAT).

December 2020

• 

  KAUST researchers rank in top 1% of cited work worldwide

  1 min read · Wed, Dec 23 2020

  News

  Fifteen KAUST faculty members and one postdoctoral researcher rank among the 2020 Highly Cited Researchers from around the world, according to Clarivate Web of Science Group, a global leader of academic research analytics. The list names individuals whose work accounts for the top 1% of research cited worldwide.
• 

  Alumna Imane Boudellioua (PhD ’19, MS ’12) receives KACST prize

  1 min read · Mon, Dec 21 2020

  News Spotlight

  Congratulations to Computer Science alumna Imane Boudellioua (Ph.D. ’19, MS ’12) for receiving a prize in the 19th edition of the annual KACST Almarai National Prize for Creative Scientific Work for Students (Ph.D. Level). As a Ph.D. student in the Computational Bioscience Research Center, Dr. Boudellioua worked in machine learning and data mining algorithms, with research targeting the potential to help patients with mysterious ailments find genetic causes for their undiagnosed disease.
• 

  KAUST VCCVIS researchers win IEEE Scientific Visualization (SciVis) 2020 Best Paper Award

  1 min read · Sun, Dec 6 2020

  News

  IEEE SciVis award

  Researchers from the KAUST High-Performance Visualization Group (VCCVIS) have won the IEEE Scientific Visualization (SciVis) 2020 Best Paper Award at the IEEE Visualization Conference (IEEE VIS) 2020. Held virtually from October 25-30, IEEE VIS 2020 brought together a host of researchers and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to discuss advances in theory, methods and visual analytics applications.
• 

  Professor Ghanem wins 2020 Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers

  1 min read · Wed, Dec 2 2020

  Awards Spotlight News

  machine learning big data

  Bernard Ghanem, KAUST associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science, recently received the 2020 Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers for ''Machine Learning and Big Data.''

November 2020

• 

  KAUST startup aims to disrupt last-mile delivery

  1 min read · Mon, Nov 30 2020

  News

  As e-commerce continues to spike worldwide, especially with the pandemic, the number of parcels delivered each day has dramatically increased. Customer expectations for speedy fulfillment have also been rising, however, leaving companies to grapple with multiple, last-mile delivery challenges.
• 

  An algorithm for success: KAUST-designed differential equation-solving algorithm included in Maple 2020

  1 min read · Tue, Nov 17 2020

  News

  algorithm nonlinear ordinary differential equations Symbolic Computation

  A KAUST-designed symbolic algorithm to solve nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) has been selected for inclusion in the current version of the computer algebra system (CAS) Maple 2020. The global symbolic and numeric computing software system—developed by the Canadian company Waterloo Maple (Maplesoft)—is widely used by scientists, engineers, and researchers to analyze, visualize, and solve mathematical problems.
• 

  Talented KAUST Ph.D. student aims to revolutionize healthcare with machine learning

  1 min read · Tue, Nov 10 2020

  News

  machine learning healthcare bioinformatics

  KAUST Ph.D. student, Yu Li, is a talented young computer scientist with an interest in developing novel computational methods and algorithms to solve and understand the principles behind the “bio-world.”
• 

  Keep the data coming

  1 min read · Mon, Nov 9 2020

  News

  big data extreme computing applied mathematics computational science

  A continuous data supply ensures data-intensive simulations can run at maximum speed.
• 

  Peering under the hood of SARS-CoV-Two

  1 min read · Sun, Nov 8 2020

  News

  visual computing Computer science COVID-19

  Microscope and protein data are incorporated into an easy-to-use-and-update tool that can model an organism’s 3D appearance.

October 2020

• 

  KAUST team wins NEOM AI Challenge

  1 min read · Mon, Oct 26 2020

  News

  In June this year, KAUST students were invited to Dream up ideas and Imagine new solutions for solving challenges in NEOM using AI Models. This was organized by a Saudi national competition for all universities in the Kingdom. 100+ projects were submitted to the organizing committee (https://neomchallenge.com/en).
• 

  Three papers presented at IEEE VIS 2020 authored by the Nanovisualization group at KAUST

  1 min read · Thu, Oct 22 2020

  News

  Three papers presented at IEEE VIS 2020 authored by the Nanovisualization group at KAUST! 1. Our new 3D rapid modeling technique for creating mescoscale models, developed together with Scripps Research, Nanographics, and TU Wien, Austria: 10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030415 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9224865 2. Privacy-preserving volume rendering technique developed in collaboration with TU Wien, Austria and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences: 10.1109/TVCG.2020.3030436 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9222562/ 3. Invited TVCG paper developed in collaboration
• 

  The development of a new 3D visualization technique for In-Silico Design for DNA-Nanotechnology

  1 min read · Thu, Oct 22 2020

  News

  The Nanovisualization group at KAUST has collaborated with AIT and TU Wien, Austria and Imperial College London, UK on the development of a new 3D visualization technique for In-Silico Design for DNA-Nanotechnology. This work is published in NAR: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa593. For more information see the publication page at nanovis.org
• 

  Dr. Ciril Bohak Joins the Visual Computing Center

  1 min read · Mon, Oct 12 2020

  News

  computer graphics data visualisation

  We are proudly announcing that Dr. Ciril Bohak has joined VCC as a Postdoctoral researcher of Computer Science in October, 2020. Ciril Bohak is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Teaching Assistant in the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Multimedia, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His main research interests are Computer Graphics, Data Visualization, and Game Technology. His current research includes real-time medical and biological volumetric data visualization on the web, visualization of geodetic data (LiDAR and orthophoto) and high-energy
• 

  Prof. Ivan Viola acts as Eurographics 2021 Full Papers Chair

  1 min read · Mon, Oct 12 2020

  News

  Prof. Ivan Viola will act as the Eurographics 2021 Full Papers Chair in the upcoming 42nd Annual Conference of the European Association for Computer Graphics - Eurographics 2021 - that will take place on May 3 − 7, 2021. Eurographics 2021 is a unique platform for the computer graphics community to showcase the latest techniques and educational work, and to explore new trends and ideas. The Eurographics 2021 Full Papers Program will showcase innovative research in Computer Graphics and related areas. Participants have been invited to submit new ideas and encouraged in all forms of research

September 2020

• 

  KAUST Ph.D. graduate wins best paper award at prestigious Euro-Par 2020

  1 min read · Sun, Sep 20 2020

  News Spotlight

  euro-par conference

  KAUST Ph.D. graduate, Dr Tariq Alturkestani, won the best paper award at the prestigious annual international conference Euro-Par 2020. The paper was selected out of 158 papers that were submitted by candidates from all over the world.
• 

  Professor Knio named Interim Dean of the KAUST CEMSE Division

  1 min read · Mon, Sep 14 2020

  News

  Omar Knio, KAUST professor of applied mathematics and computational science, has assumed the role of Interim Dean of the Computer, Electrical, Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) Division. Professor Knio succeeds former CEMSE Dean Professor Mootaz Elnozahy, who will now assume the role of Special Advisor to the KAUST President in the areas of open online learning and cybersecurity.
• 

  Meet KAUST student: Konstantin Burlachenko

  1 min read · Wed, Sep 9 2020

  News

  machine learning artificial intelligence

  Konstantin Burlachenko holds a master’s degree in computer science from Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU), Russia. After graduating from BMSTU, he worked in several prominent Moscow companies, such as Huawei, NVIDIA, and Yandex. He joined KAUST in August 2020 as a Ph.D. candidate and member of Professor Peter Richtarik's Optimization and Machine Learning Lab.
• 

  Meet KAUST prospective student: Feng Liang

  1 min read · Mon, Sep 7 2020

  News

  artificial intelligence computer graphics

  Feng Liang is a computer science and engineering graduate who will join KAUST from the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), China. Feng will join the University this fall as a M.S. candidate and member of the KAUST Nanovisualization Research Group under the supervision of Professor Ivan Viola.
• 

  Turning your desktop to a Supercomputer with ExaGeoStatR

  1 min read · Mon, Sep 7 2020

  News

  Maximum Likelihood HPC Environmental Statistics

  Turning your desktop to a Supercomputer with ExaGeoStatR Download at https://github.com/ecrc/exageostatR. Remember the old times where you had to leave your R simulations running for the whole night on your desktop due to a large climate/weather dataset? ExaGeoStatR combines the user productivity of R with high performance computing linear algebra software libraries to deliver supercomputing-style environment right below your desk. ExaGeoStatR enables computing the maximum likelihood using large environmental datasets on R, while extracting performance from the underlying hardware resources
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  Meet KAUST prospective student: Kilichbek Haydarov

  1 min read · Sun, Sep 6 2020

  News

  Computer Vision

  Kilichbek Haydarov is a graduate student who will join KAUST from Uzbekistan. He will join KAUST as a M.S./Ph.D. candidate and member of the KAUST Computer Vision, Content AI research group under the supervision of Professor Mohamed Elhoseiny. Kilichbek obtained his bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from Sejong University, South Korea.

August 2020

• 

  Meet KAUST prospective student: Reem Alghamdi

  1 min read · Mon, Aug 31 2020

  News

  machine learning

  Reem Alghamdi is a computer science graduate from Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Saudi Arabia. Reem will join KAUST this fall as a M.S. candidate under the supervision of Professor Peter Richtarik.
• 

  Meet KAUST prospective student: Kai Yi

  1 min read · Thu, Aug 27 2020

  News

  Computer Vision machine learning

  Kai Yi is a graduate from Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU), China, who will join KAUST in the fall of 2020. Kai will join KAUST as a M.S./Ph.D. candidate and member of the KAUST Computer Vision, Content AI research group under the supervision of Professor Mohamed Elhoseiny. KAUST's high reputation and Kai's interest in computer vision and machine learning prompted him to choose the University to further his academic career.
• 

  Meet KAUST prospective student: Xiaopeng Xu

  1 min read · Wed, Aug 26 2020

  News

  Computational biology artificial intelligence

  Xiaopeng Xu is a computer science graduate who will join KAUST in the fall of 2020. Xu obtained a master’s degree in computer science from KAUST, and a bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, respectively. He will join KAUST in the fall of 2020 as a Ph.D. candidate and a member of the KAUST Structural and Functional Bioinformatics group under the supervision of Professor Xin Gao.
• 

  Computers excel in chemistry class

  1 min read · Mon, Aug 24 2020

  News

  Computer science combustion machine learning

  Machine learning models can rapidly and accurately estimate key chemical parameters related to molecular reactivity.
• 

  KAUST-Stanford neural network paper accepted for presentation at ECCV 2020

  1 min read · Sun, Aug 23 2020

  News

  artificial intelligence Computer Vision

  A novel KAUST-Stanford University research paper by Panos Achlioptas (Stanford), Ahmed Abdelreheem (KAUST), Fei Xia (Stanford), Mohamed Elhoseiny (KAUST) and Leonidas Guibas (Stanford) was accepted for presentation at the 16th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2020).
• 

  Meet KAUST prospective student: Zhenwen Liang

  1 min read · Thu, Aug 20 2020

  News

  artificial intelligence machine learning

  Zhenwen Liang, 22, is a computer science graduate from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), China. Zhenwen will join KAUST in the fall of 2020 as a M.S./Ph.D. candidate and member of the Machine Intelligence and kNowledge Engineering research group under the supervision of Professor Xiangliang Zhang.
• 

  KAUST prospective student: Xingdi Zhang

  1 min read · Tue, Aug 18 2020

  News

  parallel computing Computer Vision

  Xingdi Zhang is a computer science graduate from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), China. Xingdi will join KAUST in the fall of 2020 as a M.S./Ph.D. candidate and member of the KAUST High-Performance Visualization Group under the supervision of Professor Markus Hadwiger.
• 

  Former KAUST VSRP student wins Best Talk Award at ISMB 2020

  1 min read · Tue, Aug 18 2020

  News

  bio-ontology ISCB ISMB genome artificial intelligence

  Runar Reve, a former KAUST Visiting Student Research Program (VSRP) student, recently received the International Society for Computational Biology’s (ISCB) Bio-Ontologies COSI – Best Talk Award at the 28th Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) 2020.