News

June 2019

• 

  KAUST Professor Kazuhiro Ohkawa elected Fellow of the Japan Society of Applied Physics

  1 min read · Tue, Jun 18 2019

  Spotlight News

  semiconductors nitride photocatalyst artificial photosynthesis Laser Diodes

  By David Murphy, KAUST News KAUST Professor of Electrical Engineering Kazuhiro Ohkawa was recently elected as a Fellow of the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP). The JSAP was established in 1930 as a voluntary forum for applied physics researchers in the country. Ohkawa's JSAP peers recognized him for his exceptional contributions to the progression of applied physics and his specific contribution to the "development of wide bandgap semiconductor epitaxial growth and optical devices," JSAP stated. "It is a great honor for me to be elected as a Fellow of the JSAP," Ohkawa noted. "The
• 

  Remote sensing of toxic algal blooms

  1 min read · Thu, Jun 13 2019

  News

  Red Sea environment marine science earth science and engineering

  Algal blooms in the Red Sea can be detected with a new method that accounts for dust storms and aerosols.
• 

  KAUST Ph.D student, Jorge A. Holguin-Lerma, awarded 2019 SPIE Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship

  1 min read · Tue, Jun 11 2019

  Awards News Spotlight

  Visible light communications Photonic IC Laser Diodes III-Nitride Optoelectronics

  SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, recently awarded KAUST Ph.D. student Jorge Holguín-Lerma a 2019 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship for his potential research contributions to optics, photonics or other related fields. Holguín-Lerma joined KAUST in August 2016 and is a member of Professor Boon S. Ooi's Photonics Laboratory.
• 

  Taif

  1 min read · Mon, Jun 10 2019

  Spotlight

  Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
• 

  Tabuk

  1 min read · Sun, Jun 9 2019

  Spotlight

  Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
• 

  KAUST Associate Professor Jr-Hau He wins Nano Energy Award 2019

  1 min read · Sun, Jun 9 2019

  Awards Spotlight News

  nanomaterials hydrogen energy optoelectronics nanotechnology

  The Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently announced that KAUST Associate Professor Jr-Hau He is one of three selected scholars who will receive the Nano Energy Awards 2019.
• 

  Al Balad

  1 min read · Sat, Jun 8 2019

  Spotlight

  Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
• 

  Al Riyadh

  1 min read · Sat, Jun 1 2019

  Spotlight

  Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
• 

  Compound Semiconductor features “Narrowing the linewidth of the green laser”

  1 min read · Sat, Jun 1 2019

  News

  ​Narrowing the linewidth of the green laser was featured in the June issue Compound Semiconductor Magazine.​

May 2019

• 

  Measurement Selection: A Random Matrix Theory Approach

  1 min read · Thu, May 30 2019

  News

  Random Matrix Theory Measurement Wireless Communications

  Khalil Elkhalil , Student Member, IEEE, Abla Kammoun, Member, IEEE, Tareq Y. Al-Naffouri, Member, IEEE, and Mohamed-Slim Alouini , Fellow, IEEE Abstract This paper considers the problem of selecting a set of k measurements from n available sensor observations. The selected measurements should minimize a certain error function assessing the error in estimating a certain m dimensional parameter vector. The exhaustive search inspecting each of the (n) possible choices would require very high computational k complexity and as such is not practical for large n and k. Alternative methods with low
• 

  Study finds Red Sea may be cooling rather than warming

  1 min read · Thu, May 30 2019

  News

  Bayesian Estimation Geophysical Fluid Modeling uncertainty quantification

  A recent study by a team including KAUST Earth scientists and oceanographers revealed that surface temperatures in the Red Sea may be cooling rather than rising. Analysis of long-term data sets shows that the current high warming rates of the Red Sea appear to be a combined effect of global warming and natural long-duration changes in sea surface temperature. "Our study has revealed a sequence of alternating positive and negative trends in Red Sea surface temperatures. Over the next decades, the trends indicate a cooling phase that may counter the effects of global warming," stated Ibrahim
• 

  Alumni Focus: Faisal Nawab

  1 min read · Wed, May 29 2019

  News Spotlight

  KAUST alumnus Faisal Nawab received his master's degree in computer science from the University in 2011. His M.S. thesis work, which focused on how to build wireless network infrastructure, was supervised by KAUST Associate Professor Basem Shihada.
• 

  Ph.D. student's innovative research wins awards

  1 min read · Sun, May 26 2019

  Awards News Spotlight

  student award

  KAUST Ph.D. student Khalil Youssef Moussi recently had his innovative research recognized at the 14th Annual IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems (NEMS). At the event, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand, from April 11 to 14, the electrical engineering student was a finalist of the Best Student Paper Award and a finalist of the Best Conference Paper Award.
• 

  KAUST robotics team wins honors at European Robotics League event

  1 min read · Tue, May 21 2019

  Awards News Spotlight

  honor

  A team of researchers from the KAUST Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control (RISC) lab won both the "Best Air Team" special award and the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency special prize during the recent European Robotics League (ERL) Emergency Robots Challenge in Sevilla, Spain. From February 18 to 23, the KAUST RISC team competed with several international university robotics teams from Croatia, France and Poland to complete a set of diverse aerial robotic challenges.
• 

  KAUST Professor David Keyes to chair International Supercomputing Conference 2020

  1 min read · Mon, May 20 2019

  Spotlight News

  supercomputing conference

  David Keyes, KAUST professor of applied mathematics and computational science; director of the University's Extreme Computing Research Center; and senior associate to the President of KAUST, will chair the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) 2020. He will be the first program chair from a Middle Eastern institution, as announced by ISC 2020.
• Better racing car design through an industry partnership

  1 min read · Sun, May 19 2019

  News

  applied mathematics computational science fluid dynamics aerodynamics

  The Formula 1 race track is the ultimate testbed for a KAUST researcher's latest work.
• 

  Alumni Focus: Manal Kalkatawi

  1 min read · Thu, May 16 2019

  News Spotlight

  Manal Kalkatawi graduated from KAUST in 2017 with a Ph.D. in computer science with a focus on bioinformatics. She is currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah. Kalkatawi also pursues research in her field of specialization through cooperation with different research organizations, and she supervises master's degree theses of KAU students.
• 

  Cutting datasets down to size

  1 min read · Thu, May 16 2019

  News

  applied mathematics computational science statistics environment

  A powerful statistical tool could significantly reduce the burden of analyzing very large datasets.
• West Africa warms but airborne dust keeps the Red Sea cool

  1 min read · Wed, May 15 2019

  News

  climate science climate projections supercomputing earth science and engineering

  World-class computing facilities at KAUST enable researchers to tackle complex questions in climate science and oceanography.
• 

  KAUST Associate Professor Andrea Fratalocchi’s research leads to Institute of Physics Fellowship

  1 min read · Sun, May 12 2019

  Awards Spotlight News

  photonics cybersecurity

  Andrea Fratalocchi, associate professor in the University's Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) division, was recently granted a Fellowship of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) by the Institute of Physics (IOP). Fratalocchi was awarded the IOP's highest level of membership in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments in physics.
• 

  Taking aim at outliers

  1 min read · Sun, May 5 2019

  News

  statistics Environmental Statistics

  Automatic detection of uncharacteristic data sequences could change the way data is processed and analyzed.
• Smart pill bottle keeps drugs safe

  1 min read · Sun, May 5 2019

  News

  drug safety sensors electrical engineering

  Low-cost, stretchy sensors can be assembled inside the lid of a drug container to help monitor patient safety.
• 

  Al Baha

  1 min read · Sat, May 4 2019

  Spotlight

• 

  Semiconductor Today features “Distributed feed-back gratings for indium gallium nitride laser diodes”

  1 min read · Fri, May 3 2019

  News

  Distributed feedback gratings for indium gallium nitride laser diodes” was featured in the May issue of Semiconductor Today Magazine.
• 

  Eddy currents affect flux of salt more than heat

  1 min read · Thu, May 2 2019

  News

  earth science and engineering marine science ocean circulation Red Sea

  Modeling the 3D structure of Red Sea eddies shows how transport of energy and biochemical materials influences circulation patterns in the Red Sea.
• 

  Electronics conference gives a positive charge

  1 min read · Thu, May 2 2019

  News

  Electronic devices piezoelectric nanosystem

  Highlighting sustainability and the work of female researchers was a strong focus of the international KAUST-US NSF electronics conference.

April 2019

• 

  The darkest black

  1 min read · Tue, Apr 30 2019

  News

  gold nanosphere nanorods insects light

  Metallic nanostructures absorb light better than any other known structures.
• 

  Simple statistics can be good enough

  1 min read · Tue, Apr 30 2019

  News

  Computer science statistics environment

  Study of the mismatch between spatial environmental data and a commonly used statistical analysis suggests simpler statistics are sufficient in many cases.
• 

  KAUST alumna’s paper recognized by American Statistical Association

  1 min read · Tue, Apr 30 2019

  Awards News Spotlight

  data transformations wind emulation and forecasting depth for functional data

  KAUST alumna Yuan Yan recently received an honorable mention from the American Statistical Association (ASA) for her paper entitled "Vector Autoregressive Models with Spatially Structured Coefficients for Time Series on a Spatial Grid." Yan, who participated in the ASA student paper competition last year, will be officially recognized for her contribution later this year at the association's 2019 Joint Statistical Meetings in Denver, Colorado, U.S., from July 27 to August 1.
• 

  An Ultra-Area-Efficient 1024-Point In-Memory FFT Processor

  1 min read · Fri, Apr 26 2019

  News

  FFT Circuits

  Hasan E. Yantir, et al., "An Ultra-Area-Efficient 1024-Point In-Memory FFT Processor", Micromachines, 10 (8), 2019, 509. Current computation architectures rely on more processor-centric design principles. On the other hand, the inevitable increase in the amount of data that applications need forces researchers to design novel processor architectures that are more data-centric. By following this principle, this study proposes an area-efficient Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processor through in-memory computing. The proposed architecture occupies the smallest footprint of around 0.1 mm2 inside
• 

  A Comparison of Artificial Neural Network(ANN) and Support Vector Machine(SVM) Classifiers for Neural Seizure Detection

  1 min read · Thu, Apr 25 2019

  News

  Elgammal, M. A., Mostafa, H., Salama, K. N., & Mohieldin, A. N. (2019, August). A Comparison of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) Classifiers for Neural Seizure Detection. In 2019 IEEE 62nd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS) (pp. 646-649). IEEE. In this paper, two different classifiers are software and hardware implemented for neural seizure detection. The two techniques are support vector machine(SVM) and artificial neural networks(ANN). The two techniques are pretrained on software and only the classifiers are hardware implemented
• 

  Wearable Electronics: An Imperceptible Magnetic Skin

  1 min read · Thu, Apr 25 2019

  News

  Abdullah S. Almansouri, et al., "An Imperceptible Magnetic Skin." Advanced Materials Technologies 4 (10), 2019, 1900493. Flexible and wearable magnetoelectronics add intriguing new functionalities to natural perception. Of particular interest regarding these artificial skins are wireless sensing and touchless interactions. Biocompatibility and imperceptibility are the most significant features of devices attached to the bodies. A biocompatible magnetic skin is introduced. It offers extreme flexibility, stretchability (>300%), and is lightweight, while maintaining a remanent magnetization up to
• 

  KAUST Ph.D. student wins best paper award from American Statistical Association

  1 min read · Thu, Apr 25 2019

  Awards News Spotlight

  Statistical computing High Performance Computing

  KAUST Ph.D. statistics student Jian Cao was recently selected as a best paper award winner by the American Statistical Association (ASA) for his paper entitled "Computing High-Dimensional Normal and Student-t Probabilities with Tile-Low-Rank Quasi-Monte Carlo and Block Reordering." Cao's paper was chosen in an ASA student paper competition under the section on Statistical Computing.
• Putting the sense in materials

  1 min read · Wed, Apr 24 2019

  News

  sensors machine learning supercomputing

  An interdisciplinary initiative is helping KAUST be at the forefront of a digital revolution, where sensors can find a use just about anywhere.
• 

  Marine Skin dives deeper for better monitoring

  1 min read · Mon, Apr 22 2019

  News

  monitoring electrical engineering marine science

  A pioneering tagging system that monitors the movement and local environment of sea animals reaches deeper depths and higher sensitivities.
• 

  Student Focus: Muhammad Akram Karimi

  1 min read · Fri, Apr 19 2019

  News Spotlight

  integrated circuits sensors energy harvesting

  Muhammad Akram Karimi describes himself as an inquisitive-minded researcher who loves to solve industrial challenges through science and technology. Karimi is a third year Ph.D. student working in the Integrated Microwaves Packaging Antennas & Circuits Technology (IMPACT) Lab under the supervision of Professor Atif Shamim. His current research focus is on the design of low-cost and printed microwave sensors for various industrial applications, with a prime focus on the oil industry.
• MOFs can sense and sort troublesome gases

  1 min read · Wed, Apr 17 2019

  News

  sensors chemical science electrical engineering gas monitoring MOFs

  Fluorinated metal-organic frameworks make excellent materials for selective sensing and removal of toxic gases.
• 

  Tiny, fast, accurate technology on the radar

  1 min read · Wed, Apr 17 2019

  News

  communications electrical engineering sensors

  A tiny, portable radar device could allow visually impaired people, or unmanned moving devices, to detect objects in real time.
• 

  Alumni Focus: Suzan Katamoura

  1 min read · Mon, Apr 15 2019

  News Spotlight

  KAUST alumna Suzan Katamoura graduated from the University in 2013 with a master's degree in computer networks. She currently works at King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy as a researcher and a director of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Unit in the Atomic Energy Sector‏.
• 

  KAUST to launch first virtual fabrication lab

  1 min read · Mon, Apr 15 2019

  News

  MOOC CMOS technology electrical engineering virtual lab distance learning

  The vFabLab™ platform, short for Virtual Fabrication Lab, will be presented on April 24th during a webinar organized and hosted by the IEEE Electron Devices Society.
• 

  Conducting Fab lessons in a virtual clean room

  1 min read · Sun, Apr 14 2019

  Spotlight

  Training nanofabrication materials science electrical engineering

  A virtual platform makes learning how to fabricate a semiconductor device easier, safer and more interactive.
• 

  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.
• 

  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.
• 

  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.
• 

  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.