News

April 2019

• 

  KAUST

  1 min read · Thu, Apr 11 2019

  Spotlight

• 

  Saudi Arabia

  1 min read · Mon, Apr 1 2019

  Spotlight

March 2019

• 

  EE Graduate Seminar: Visible light communication

  1 min read · Sun, Mar 31 2019

  News

  A ​seminar by Dr. Guangyu Liu on Visible light communication​
• Clustering helps unlock secrets of the human brain

  1 min read · Sun, Mar 31 2019

  News

  statistics brain science environmental science

  The latest statistical methods from research on complex high-dimensional environmental data also yield powerful tools for interpreting brain activity.
• 

  Student Focus: Adel Bibi

  1 min read · Sun, Mar 24 2019

  Spotlight

  machine learning artificial intelligence

  KAUST Ph.D. student Adel Bibi, who works on bridging the gap between theory and practice in deep learning, believes we're living in a very exciting time.
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  Using sensor technology to tackle red palm weevils

  1 min read · Thu, Mar 14 2019

  News

  red palm weevil palm trees coconut palms

  The red palm weevil ( Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) is a snout beetle insect originating from tropical Asia. Over the last few decades, it has spread to a large part of the Middle East, North Africa, and virtually the entire Mediterranean region. Weevil larvae, the insects at their stage of development from an egg to before their adult form, are the cause of severe and widespread damage to certain palm tree species. The weevil larvae spend their entire four-month life cycle within the palm tree's trunk, hollowing it out from the inside until the tree dies. They are considered the most destructive
• 

  Chinese students explore KAUST

  1 min read · Thu, Mar 14 2019

  News

  Students from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu recently visited the KAUST campus.
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  A race against time

  1 min read · Thu, Mar 7 2019

  News Spotlight

  Formula 1 algorithm aerodynamics

  The theme of the University's 2019 Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) was "time." It represented an opportune moment for KAUST to welcome members of the McLaren Group to campus to discuss the recently signed extreme performance research partnership between KAUST and McLaren.
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  Alumni Focus: Albara Alauhali

  1 min read · Tue, Mar 5 2019

  News Spotlight

  saudi vision 2030 KFUPM

  KAUST alumnus Albara Bin Mousaed Alauhali is currently the executive advisor and director of strategic projects at the National Identity Enhancement Program, a program aimed at achieving Saudi Vision 2030.
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  KAUST alumna wins ADIPEC Young Engineer of the Year Award

  1 min read · Sun, Mar 3 2019

  Spotlight

  award

  KAUST alumna Shamael Al-Shuhail won the prestigious Abu Dhabi International Exhibition & Conference (ADIPEC) Young Engineer of the Year Award at ADIPEC 2018 held in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
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  EE Graduate Seminar by Dr. Islam Ashry

  1 min read · Sun, Mar 3 2019

  News

  Optical fiber sensors possess numerous advantages including immunity to electromagnetic interference, harsh environment operation, and miniature size. One attractive category of them is the distributed optical fiber sensors which can measure several parameters, such as temperature and vibration, along the entire. Such distributed optical fiber sensors are used in a myriad of important applications such as oil and gas industry, real-time structural health monitoring, and aerospace transportation, among others. In this talk, we summarize the operation principles of the optical fiber distributed

February 2019

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  AAAS honors KAUST Professor David Keyes as elected Fellow

  1 min read · Thu, Feb 28 2019

  Awards Spotlight

  award

  KAUST Professor David Keyes has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society. Keyes was honored for fundamental research contributions at the interface of parallel computing and numerical analysis and his service to the mathematical sciences profession. The Fellows, announced on November 27, 2018, were recognized during the week of February 18 at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., where they received an official certificate and the AAAS Fellows' gold and blue rosette pin, the colors of which
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  Photonics Lab Members Selected for Saudi's Delegation to the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

  1 min read · Thu, Feb 28 2019

  News

  ​Two Photonics Lab members, Latifah Al Maghrabi and Dr. Abderrhamen Trichili, have been selected for the Saudi delegation to the 69th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting​, which will be held in Lindau, Germany. The meeting will be dedicated ​to physics with an emphasis on laser physics, cosmology, and gravitational waves. More than 40 Nobel Laurea​tes from around the world have confirmed their participation.
• 

  KAUST Research Conference: AI in Medicine

  1 min read · Mon, Feb 18 2019

  News

  artificial intelligence

• Scanning in the Fourth Dimension

  1 min read · Sun, Feb 17 2019

  News

  visualization visual computing

  Three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography is a widely used technology that visualizes an object's external and internal structure by assembling a series of two-dimensional images taken sequentially across or around it. However, as anyone who has had a medical magnetic resonance imaging scan will recall, this type of 3D reconstruction requires the subject to be motionless throughout the capture process, which can take minutes. Capturing a 3D structure that changes or deforms over time is much more difficult, and existing approaches often yield reconstructions marred by image artifacts and
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  Tweaking tools to track tweets over time

  1 min read · Sun, Feb 17 2019

  News

  Social media data machine learning artificial intelligence

  Computer model learns to identify Twitter users’ evolving interests by analyzing their Tweets.
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  Professor Ivan Viola Joins the Visual Computing Center

  1 min read · Wed, Feb 13 2019

  Spotlight News

  visualization visual computing

  We are proudly announcing that Professor Ivan Viola has joined VCC as an Associate Professor of Computer Science in November, 2018. He is establishing the Nano-visualization Research Group as a part of the Visual Computing Center. Prof. Viola has a master and Ph.D. from TU Wien in Austria. He has received a series of honors and recognition for his contribution to computing visualization such as the Austrian Computer Graphics Award 2016 for the Best Technical Solution, and the 1st Place Eurographics Dirk Bartz Prize for Visual Computing in Medicine 2013. Prof. Viola was attracted to KAUST for
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  Robust fractional-order proportional-integral observer for synchronization of chaotic fractional-order systems

  1 min read · Wed, Feb 13 2019

  News

  chaos control system synthesis linear matrix inequalities linear systems

  Ibrahima N' Doye, et al., "Robust fractional-order proportional-integral observer for synchronization of chaotic fractional-order systems", IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica 6 (1), 2019, 268. Abstract: In this paper, we propose a robust fractional-order proportional-integral (FOPI) observer for the synchronization of nonlinear fractional-order chaotic systems. The convergence of the observer is proved, and sufficient conditions are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) approach by using an indirect Lyapunov method. The proposed FOPI observer is robust against Lipschitz
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  Matthias Mueller Wins the Innovation Award

  1 min read · Tue, Feb 12 2019

  Awards Spotlight

  student award Poster Competition

  Matthias Mueller, a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering, who works in the Image and Video Understanding lab (IVUL) under the supervision of Professor Bernard Ghanem, was awarded the Innovation Award at the WEP Library E-Poster Competition on the poster "Driving Policy Transfer via Modularity and Abstraction". The competition was held at the campus library as part of the Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) 2019 that took place in KAUST from the 13 th until 24 th of January, 2019. The winners received their awards at the Final Gala that was held to celebrate the end of the tenth annual Winter
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  Professor Helmut Pottmann Returns to Visual Computing Center

  1 min read · Tue, Feb 12 2019

  Spotlight News

  The Visual Computing Center would like to welcome back Professor Helmut Pottmann who recently rejoined the center in October 2018. Helmut Pottmann is a professor of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (AMCS) at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and Principal Investigator of the Geometry and Computational Design group (GCD). He was the Founding Director of the Geometric Modeling and Scientific Visualization Center, which is now the Visual Computing Center, from April 2009 to December 2013. Professor Pottmann shared these words on returning back to KAUST: "After
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  EE Graduate Seminar: Self-Assembled AlGaInN Axial-Nanowires on Unconventional Substrates

  1 min read · Sun, Feb 10 2019

  News

  Group-III nitrides (AlGaInN) feature direct bandgaps covering a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum, making them suitable for solid-state lighting, chemical/biological sensing, water splitting, medical diagnostics, and optical communication. These nanowires defy the conventional crystal/epitaxial growth requirements of lattice-, thermal and crystal-structure-matching, as the nanostructures can be grown strain- and defect-free on various unconventional substrates, such as silicon and metals. The combinatorial choice of composition, layer-structure arrangement and materials (metal
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  Marine sensor gets to grips with salt

  1 min read · Sun, Feb 3 2019

  News

  electrical engineering marine science sensors

  Laser-induced graphene formation creates tailor-made sensors for monitoring ocean creatures and ecosystems.

January 2019

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  KAUST Associate Professor Taous-Meriem Laleg-Kirati finalist at Leadership Excellence for Women Awards & Symposium

  1 min read · Wed, Jan 30 2019

  Spotlight News

  modeling numerical analysis

  Taous-Meriem Laleg-Kirati, KAUST associate professor of electrical engineering in the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division, was selected as one of three finalists in the academic of distinction category at the recent Leadership Excellence for Women Awards & Symposium (LEWAS) in Bahrain.
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  Adel is invited to give a talk in EECVC on "Optimization meets Deep Learning"

  1 min read · Tue, Jan 22 2019

  News

  Deep learning optimization EECVC

  ​Adel is invited to give a talk in EECVC on "Optimization meets Deep Learning"​. It is a 45 minutes talk scheduled on the 6th of July 2019.
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  A broader bandwidth for electrical devices

  1 min read · Tue, Jan 22 2019

  News

  A simple fractional-order capacitor has been developed by a team from KAUST. Made from a single component, this device expands the range of frequencies that can be achieved by these devices, making them better at energy storage. Traditional analogue components are resistors, capacitors, and inductors. More recently, fractional-order components have gained attention due to their unconventional properties that enable increased flexibility. For example, fractional-order capacitors can temporarily store the signal in a manner that is similar to the behavior of neurons, thus imitating the
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  Raphaël Huser’s article among the top downloaded articles in Springer’s Environmental Sciences Journals

  1 min read · Tue, Jan 22 2019

  News

  INLA statistics xstat research highlights

  Luigi Lombardo, Thomas Opitz, and Raphaël Huser’s article “Point process-based modeling of multiple debris flow landslides using INLA: an application to the 2009 Messina disaster”, published in the scientific journal Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment (SERRA), in July 2018, is among the top downloaded articles in Springer’s Environmental Sciences Journals for the year 2018. Huser is an Assistant Professor of statistics in the CEMSE division and principal investigator of the Extreme Statistics (extSTAT) Research Group at KAUST.
• 3D-printed cube dials into energy harvesting

  1 min read · Sun, Jan 13 2019

  News

  electrical engineering sensors IoT

  Ambient energy emitted by cellular phones and modems can be captured and converted into electricity using unusually shaped technology.
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  Postdoc Carolina Euan received Sylvia Esterby Presentation Award from TIES

  1 min read · Tue, Jan 8 2019

  News

  award statistics

  Carolina Euán, a postdoctoral fellow in KAUST Associate Professor Ying Sun's Environmental Statistics research group, recently received the Sylvia Esterby Presentation Award from the International Environmentrics Society (TIES) at the 28th Annual TIES Conference 2018 held from July 16 to 21, 2018, in Guanajuato, Mexico. Euán won the award for her talk entitled "Bernoulli Vector Autoregressive Model with Applications to Spatio-temporal Drought Events in Mexico."
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  Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control Lab prepares robots to have swarm intelligence

  1 min read · Mon, Jan 7 2019

  News

  game theory swarm robotics

  The KAUST Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control (RISC) lab takes a "think globally, act locally" approach in swarm robotics. The RISC lab develops methodologies to deploy robots to work together to achieve collaborative tasks in missions involving crucial time-sensitive tasks, such as team search and rescue, patrolling for safety and environmental monitoring. To address these applications, the RISC lab develops algorithms to enable robots to operate with limited or even no human supervision. "We want to move away from the low-level remotely operated model to more of a high-level human
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  Visualization of brain structures helps to model function

  1 min read · Thu, Jan 3 2019

  News

  bioscience

  Computer simulations and virtual reality are used by KAUST researchers and collaborators in France to visualize the energetic coupling between neurons and astrocytes and to improve understanding of brain metabolism. The human brain uses more energy than any other organ, accounting for around 20 percent of all glucose-derived energy. Neurons can’t meet their own energy requirements: they depend on supporting glial cells and the neurovascular system to supply various forms of sugar fuel. However, it is still unclear how this neuro-glio-vasculature network manages the brain’s energy demands
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  KAUST students participate in Europe’s leading hackathon event

  1 min read · Thu, Jan 3 2019

  Awards

  Torsten Hädrich and Yan Gong, two KAUST Ph.D. students from the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division, recently represented KAUST at the 48-hour international hackathon event Junction 2018. The event, which is Europe's most prestigious annual hackathon, brought computer and data scientists to Helsinki, Finland, from November 23 to 25, 2018, with the goal of addressing real-world computational issues while inspiring the next generation of technological leaders. Around 1,000 participants—including developers, designers and other "tech-heads" from 105
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  Lighting the way to the underwater Internet of things

  1 min read · Wed, Jan 2 2019

  News

  underwater sensor platform electrical engineering communications

  An optical system for monitoring underwater sensor positions could enable large networks of devices to be deployed for ocean measurements.
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  Magneto-Acoustic Resonator for Aquatic Animal Tracking

  1 min read · Tue, Jan 1 2019

  News

  acoustic noise Biosensors acoustic pulses acoustic signal processing acoustic signal detection

  Abdullah S. Almansouri, et al., "Magneto-Acoustic Resonator for Aquatic Animal Tracking" IEEE Transactions on Magnetics 55 (2), 2019, 1. Over the past three decades, passive acoustic telemetry has significantly helped marine scientist to study and understand the spatial ecology, migratory behaviors, and mortality rates of aquatic animals. A popular telemetry system consists of two components: an acoustic transmitter tag attached to an aquatic animal and powered by a small battery, and a stationary station that receives the acoustic signals from the tagged animal and determines its location

December 2018

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  KAUST faculty members receive the King Prize for Honoring Inventors and the Gifted

  1 min read · Mon, Dec 31 2018

  Spotlight

  antenna arrays award

  KAUST Professors Atif Shamim and Osman Bakr received the Custodian of the King Prize for Honoring Inventors and the Gifted, which was organized by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST).
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  Paper sensors remove the sting of diabetic testing

  1 min read · Thu, Dec 20 2018

  News

  bioscience health monitoring sensors diabetes

  Inkjet-printed device helps monitor a patient’s blood sugar levels without painful needles.
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  One switch to rule them all

  1 min read · Sun, Dec 16 2018

  News

  Radio-frequency switches Modules stimuli

  Inkjet-printed switches make multiple frequency bands easier and cheaper to manage in wireless devices.
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  Students Peng Zhong and Rustam Bekishev get their MS degree

  1 min read · Fri, Dec 14 2018

  News

  statistics

  On December 14, 2018, KAUST welcomed 243 graduates at the University’s ninth Commencement ceremony. Among them, students Rustam Bekishev and Peng Zhong, who is now a Ph.D. student In Statistics in our group, got their MS degree. Congratulations!
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  KAUST Ph.D. student Matthias Mueller wins award for drone research

  1 min read · Thu, Dec 13 2018

  Awards Spotlight

  UAV

  KAUST Ph.D. student Matthias Mueller, who works in the Image and Video Understanding Lab under the supervision of KAUST Associate Professor Bernard Ghanem, won the Best Paper/Presentation Award at the 2nd International Workshop on Computer Vision for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs are commonly known as drones. The workshop was held in September 2018 in Germany in the post-proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Computer Vision workshops. Müller's paper entitled "Teaching UAVs to Race: End to End Regression of Agile Controls in Simulation" outlines the research of Müller and his
• Brighter blue lights for faster communication

  1 min read · Tue, Dec 11 2018

  News

  electrical engineering communications

  High-performance blue-light-emitting diodes could boost white-light, high-speed data transmission.
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  Dr Sandeep's review on OFET is out

  1 min read · Sat, Dec 8 2018

  News

  Sandeep Transistors OFET

  We are excited to share our review on Organic Field Effect Transistors sensing platforms. This is Dr Sandeep's first paper with the group and more to come soon. Organic field effect transistors (OFETs) have been the focus of sensing application research over the last two decades. The challenges and possible future directions of OFET arrays in embedded sensing platforms are presented. More details at: Sandeep G.Surya, Harshil N.Raval, Rafiq Ahmad, PrashantSonar, Khaled N.Salama, V.Ramgopal Rao, Organic field effect transistors (OFETs) in environmental sensing and health monitoring: A review
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  Chasing spatial patterns

  1 min read · Sun, Dec 2 2018

  News

  climate science

  A more accurate way of resolving spatial patterns in weather could lead to better predictions of climate change.

November 2018

• 

  PepPrint’s 3D bioprinting technology showcased at Asbar World Forum 2018

  1 min read · Wed, Nov 28 2018

  News

  3D bioprinting

  The Asbar World Forum 2018, held in Riyadh, was a meeting that focused on understanding issues associated with transitioning Saudi Arabia's oil-based economy to a knowledge-based one. The aim was to find ways to manage and execute strategies to achieve the objectives of Vision 2030.
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  Nanovisualization Research Group is hiring

  1 min read · Wed, Nov 21 2018

  News

  visual computing visualization

  Nanovisualization Research Group is hiring scientific staff on the levels of Research Scientist, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Graduate Student. Follow the links to apply for the respective position: Research Scientist position Postdoctoral Fellow Graduate Student
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  Next generation algorithm advances machine learning of powerful supercomputers

  1 min read · Tue, Nov 13 2018

  News

  supercomputing

  A multi-disciplinary team of international researchers from KAUST and Japan's National Institute of Informatics (NII) in collaboration with U.S. supercomputer company Cray Inc. successfully implemented a new algorithm to efficiently harness the computational power of the fastest supercomputers in the world. "Software integration is ultimately the icing on the cake for advanced computational projects. Thanks to Cray's support, our algorithms are now deployed on all Cray supercomputers, including KAUST's Shaheen II supercomputer, as well as half of the top 10 fastest supercomputers in the world
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  KAUST Associate Professor Xiangliang Zhang talks about artificial intelligence

  1 min read · Mon, Nov 12 2018

  News

  artificial intelligence

  Xiangliang Zhang, associate professor of computer science in the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering division, recently gave an invited Early Career Spotlight Talk at the 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 23rd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-ECAI-18) 2018. During the event—which was held in Stockholm, Sweden, from July 13 to 19—Zhang and 21 international peers presented on all areas of artificial intelligence (AI).
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  2018 Workshop on Statistics and Data Science

  1 min read · Sat, Nov 10 2018

  News

  statistics data analysis

  The Statistics Program at KAUST is proud to host the 2018 Workshop on Statistics and Data Science. This workshop gathers the leading experts on statistical data science to discuss the current needs, challenges and opportunities of modeling massive and high dimensional data, predicting complex biological and physical processes. The workshop will run from November 12-14. Talks and posters presentations will take place in Auditorium 0215 (between Buildings 4 & 5). Details on the workshop (speakers, abstracts and schedule) can be found here.
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  The Indian summer monsoon keeps the Arabian Peninsula hot and dry

  1 min read · Wed, Nov 7 2018

  News

  climate science modeling

  Modeling shows that the Indian summer monsoon can trigger heatwaves and sandstorms on the Arabian Peninsula.
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  Sara Althubaiti defends her Master's thesis

  1 min read · Tue, Nov 6 2018

  News

  cancer driver mutation bioinformatics text mining machine learning

  Sara Althubaiti, a student under the supervision of Assistant Professor Robert Hoehndorf, defended her Master's thesis on November 5, 2018.
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  New stats apps show a virtual reality

  1 min read · Mon, Nov 5 2018

  News

  virtual reality statistics

  Harnessing the power of virtual reality will help to visualize data and improve statistical models.
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  Azza Althagafi defends her Master's thesis

  1 min read · Fri, Nov 2 2018

  News

  bioinformatics artificial intelligence genomics

  Azza Althagafi, a student under the supervision of Assistant Professor Robert Hoehndorf, defended her Master's thesis on November 1, 2018.