KAUST researcher proves the power of homegrown talent on the world stage
A look into KAUST Ph.D. candidate Mohammed Aljahdali’s journey and the FLTA Best Paper award recognizing his work in federated learning.
About
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) sits less than an hour’s drive from Mohammed Aljahdali’s hometown of Rabigh. With deep ties to Thuwal, the community adjoining KAUST, he embodies the power of local talent achieving Kingdom-wide impact.
A story of determination and national ambition, his journey starts in a close-knit agricultural family and leads to an award-winning Ph.D. candidacy at one of the world’s leading research institutions — all in the same neighborhood.
“If you work hard enough and if you pursue your dreams hard enough, reaching success in research and academia is possible,” said Aljahdali, whose computer science hard work earned him Best Paper recognition at the International Conference on Federated Learning Technologies and Applications (FLTA) 2025 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
“Receiving this best paper award means people really believe in my research,” he added. “They see my work as valuable. It means a lot.”
Under the supervision of KAUST Professor Marco Canini, Computer Science, Aljahdali’s research focuses on federated learning — a privacy-preserving branch of artificial intelligence that allows machine learning models to be trained directly on users’ smartphones and other devices rather than in centralized cloud servers.
Read the full story on KAUST News.
