KAUST Ph.D. student wins best paper award at EMBC ‘18

KAUST Ph.D. student Mohamed Bahloul received a best paper award at the recent 40th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC ‘18) in July. Photo by Sarah Munshi.

Mohamed Abdelwaheb Bahloul, a first-year Ph.D. student in KAUST Associate Professor Taous-Meriem Laleg-Kirati's Estimation Modeling and Analysis (EMAN) research group, received the best paper award for the Africa and Middle East region at the recent 40th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC '18). Bahloul was one of five finalists selected from each of the EMBS geographical areas (North America, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East and Asia-Pacific).

EMBC '18, which was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, from July 17 to 21, is one of the world's largest and premier conferences in the field of biomedical engineering. All paper submissions were peer-reviewed and the finalists were selected based on the merits of submissions and corresponding nominations.

Pleased to win

Bahloul's winning paper detailed a three-element fractional-order viscoelastic Windkessel model he and his colleagues worked on in the EMAN group. The proposed model incorporates a fractional-order capacitor that substitutes the ideal capacitor of standard three element Windkessel model.

"When I received the nomination email, I was really very pleased, " he said. "It was a complete surprise to have been nominated given the high standard of the competition. I am very proud that the research works we carry out have made a positive impact and received the award. I would really like to thank my advisor Professor Meriem Laleg who supported me and believed in my ideas."

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