News

March 2022

• 

  Visiting Slovenian student relishes time at KAUST

  1 min read · Tue, Mar 15 2022

  News

  nanovisualization cryogenic electron microscopy

  KAUST visiting student Aljaz Bogataj, who spent three months in the NANOVIS research group, shared his impressions of work and life at KAUST.

February 2022

• 

  Blocking microgrid cyberattacks to keep the power flowing

  1 min read · Tue, Feb 15 2022

  News

  cybersecurity smart grids resilience Cyber attacks and defenses

  Power grids have become far more complex in recent decades due to energy demands, environmental regulations and small-scale renewable energy systems that turn businesses and individuals into combined consumer-producers. One way to ensure that power supplies remain resilient is to create small groups of sources and loads called microgrids. Microgrids can operate independently of the main grid when required, such as supporting hospitals during natural disasters, for example. As microgrids grow more complex, they require sophisticated computer networks to coordinate, control and distribute
• 

  Dominik L. Michels appointed Associate Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics

  2 min read · Mon, Feb 14 2022

  News

  algorithmics machine learning scientific computing visual computing numerical simulations

  KAUST faculty member Dominik L. Michels has recently been promoted to associate professor of computer science and applied mathematics.

December 2021

• 

  Workshopping ways to revolutionize in-Kingdom kidney care

  3 min read · Sun, Dec 19 2021

  News

  The KAUST Saudi National Kidney Paired Donation Workshop, organized by Professor Michał Mańkowski with support from the KAUST CEMSE Division, brought together 12 of the Kingdom's top experts in kidney transplantation to discuss the future of this complex and highly important surgical procedure.
• 

  KAUST presents exascale expertise at SC21

  1 min read · Tue, Dec 14 2021

  News

  supercomputing HPC Shaheen

  Supercomputing experts from KAUST converged with global participants at the America's Center in St. Louis, Missouri from November 14 to 19 for SC21, the annual international conference for high performance computing (HPC), networking, storage and analysis. Established in 1988, the SC conference is the largest HPC event of its kind, with big name industries like Intel, Red Hat and Oracle sharing the exhibition floor alongside universities, government agencies and small businesses, and professionals from various affiliations attending presentations throughout the convention center. In non
• 

  Professor Elnozahy Elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

  2 min read · Thu, Dec 9 2021

  News

  Information Technology

  KAUST Professor of Computer Science Elmootazbellah Elnozahy has been elected to the rank of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow. NAI fellows are selected based on the number and significance of patents they are co-inventors; the patents must also have stemmed from a university-based research program.

November 2021

• 

  KAUST SENTRY team wins 2021 Cybersecurity Games & Conference Embedded Security Challenge

  3 min read · Wed, Nov 24 2021

  News

  resilience cybersecurity

  The SENTRY Lab team wins the 18th annual CSAW Cybersecurity Games & Conference’s (CSAW '21) Embedded Security Challenge (ESC).
• 

  KAUST collaborative research wins ACM SOSP 2021 Best Paper Award

  2 min read · Sun, Nov 7 2021

  News

  distributed file systems

  A collaborative multi-institutional research team featuring KAUST Associate Professor of Computer Science Marco Canini won the best paper award at the 28th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP 2021).

October 2021

• 

  KAUST paper wins 2020 Computational Optimization and Applications Best Paper Award

  1 min read · Tue, Oct 12 2021

  News

  stochastic gradient descent machine learning

  KAUST Professor of Computer Science Peter Richtárik and his former student Nicolas Loizou, currently a postdoctoral researcher at Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute and soon to take up an assistant professorship position at Johns Hopkins University, recently received the 2020 Computational Optimization and Applications (COAP) Best Paper Award.
• 

  Meet KAUST new student: Mohammed Khalid Aljahdali

  2 min read · Mon, Oct 4 2021

  News

  Mohammed Khalid Aljahdali obtained his B.Sc. from King Abdulaziz University, Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, Rabigh, Saudi Arabia.

September 2021

• 

  KAUST New Faculty: Marc Dacier, Professor of Computer Science

  2 min read · Thu, Sep 30 2021

  News

  Marc Dacier, professor of computer science, joins KAUST as a member of the Resilience Computing and Cybersecurity Research Center (RC3) from his most recent position as full professor and department head of the digital security department at EURECOM.
• 

  Meet KAUST new student: Xiuying Chen

  1 min read · Wed, Sep 29 2021

  News

  Natural Language Processing

  Xiuying Chen is a computer science graduate who joined KAUST from Wuhan University, China. Chen believes that KAUST provides an excellent research environment to carry out scientific research.
• 

  Schmidhuber named Director of KAUST AI Initiative

  1 min read · Tue, Sep 21 2021

  News

  KAUST recently announced that Professor Jürgen Schmidhuber will join KAUST as director of the University's Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Schmidhuber is a renowned computer scientist who is most noted for his pioneering work in the field of artificial intelligence, deep learning, and artificial neural networks.
• 

  Meet KAUST new student: Alyah Alfageh

  1 min read · Tue, Sep 14 2021

  News

  Alyah Alfageh is an electrical and computer engineering graduate who joined KAUST this fall from Effat University, Saudi Arabia. Alyah joined KAUST as a M.S. student and member of the Secure Next Generation Resilient Systems (SENTRY) Lab under the supervision of Professor Charalambos Konstantinou.
• 

  Professor Jürgen Schmidhuber appointed as the Director of the KAUST Artificial Intelligence Initiative

  1 min read · Thu, Sep 2 2021

  News

  CEMSE Division is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Jürgen Schmidhuber as the Director of the KAUST Artificial Intelligence Initiative, who will join KAUST on October 1, 2021.

August 2021

• 

  Harnessing the particle-tracking power of the algorithm

  1 min read · Wed, Aug 25 2021

  News

  fluid dynamics visual computing algorithms Computer science

  A simple camera system paired with a sophisticated image-processing algorithm can achieve faster and more accurate reconstructions of particle flow.
• 

  Drop the zeros for a performance boost

  1 min read · Mon, Aug 23 2021

  News

  machine learning big data artificial intelligence Computer science

  An eight-fold speed up of deep machine learning can be achieved by skipping the transmission of zero values.
• 

  Wildfire simulation heats up

  1 min read · Tue, Aug 10 2021

  News

  Computer science modeling environment visual computing

  Computational models capture the capricious behavior of forest fires.

July 2021

• 

  Alumni Focus: Michal A. Mankowski

  2 min read · Thu, Jul 29 2021

  News

  KAUST Alumnus Michal Mankowski's first encounter with KAUST was in 2015 when he joined the university as a VSRP student. Then, in 2016, he started his Ph.D. program and defended it in the year 2020, and then he continued as a Pos tdoc under prof. Mikhail Moshkov. He worked on multi-objective optimization and applied operations research in the healthcare domain. Together with his PI, they published a book describing a novel framework on multi-objective optimization using dynamic programming (2021). Michal is joining Erasmus Univerys Rotterdam, Netherlands as an Assistant Professor of Operations
• 

  Training an AI eye on the Moon

  1 min read · Mon, Jul 12 2021

  News

  machine learning algorithm modeling Computer science

  Machine learning accelerates the search for promising Moon sites for energy and mineral resources.

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

  2 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

  2 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

  4 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.
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  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.”
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  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

  2 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

  3 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

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  ECRC contributions to SIAM CSE21

  4 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
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  CEMSE New Faculty: Suhaib Fahmy, Associate Professor, Computer Science

  3 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.
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  CEMSE New Faculty: Di Wang, Assistant Professor of Computer Science

  2 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

  3 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

  2 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.
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  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.
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  KAUST VCCVIS researchers win IEEE Scientific Visualization (SciVis) 2020 Best Paper Award

  2 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.
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  Professor Ghanem wins 2020 Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers

  3 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.
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  An algorithm for success: KAUST-designed differential equation-solving algorithm included in Maple 2020

  3 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.
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  Talented KAUST Ph.D. student aims to revolutionize healthcare with machine learning

  3 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.