Profiles

Umberto Zerbinati is a Stipendiary Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Oriel College, University of Oxford, where he is also pursuing a D.Phil. in Mathematics. He completed his M.S. in Applied Mathematics at KAUST in 2022 and his B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Pavia in 2020.

Umberto's research interests are in Partial Differential Equations (PDE), Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing. I focus on the derivation and analysis of models for fluids with ordering, such as liquid crystals, starting from a kinetic description.

Research Scientist based in Cambridge (UK). Victor works at the Samsung AI Center, focusing on enhancing AI applications in creative and productivity domains. I earned my BSc and MSc in Electrical Engineering from Universidad del Norte, studying under the supervision of Ph.D Juan Carlos Niebles. Victor completed his PhD at KAUST under the mentorship of Prof. Bernard Ghanem, with a research focus on computer vision. My early career was marked by pioneering developments in efficient video and action understanding models. Once I joined industry, I am committed to developing advanced AI applications that empower human creativity and scale General AI, particularly in edge computing environments.

My research spans a wide array of AI disciplines, with a special focus on computer vision, efficient video understanding, and the development of AI agents with a strong interest for edge deployment. I am particularly passionate about build AI Agents to enhance human creativity and productivity. My ongoing projects aim to seamlessly integrate AI capabilities into user-centric applications, pushing the boundaries of what AI can achieve in real-world scenarios.

Vijith Varma Kotte is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. He joined KAUST in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Tareq Y. Al-Naffouri. He received his B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru, India, in 2015, and his M.Tech. degree from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) in 2018.

Prior to joining KAUST, Vijith worked as a Research Engineer at the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) in New Delhi from 2018 to 2019.

His research interests span signal and image processing, deep learning, and wireless communications, with a particular focus on radar signal processing for biomedical and automotive applications.

• MIMO Radar signal processing.
• Wireless communications..
• Deep Learning.

Dr. Xiujuan Zhang is an Associate Professor at School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanjing University and at the Nanjing National Laboratory of Microstructures. She received her Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2017. In 2018, she joined Nanjing University, starting as a postdoc. Now,  Her research focuses on acoustic metamaterials and topological physics. She has published over 30 papers in prestigious journals, including Nature, Nature Physics, Nature Communications, and Physical Review Letters. Four papers have been recognized as ESI Highly Cited Papers, with a total citation exceeding 2000.

Xiujuan Zhang's research interests include topological physics and artificial microstructured topological materials, and has published more than 30 articles as the first author in international journals, including Nature, Nature Physic, Nature Communications and Physical Review Letters. Her he doctoral studies focused on the effective dielectric theory of Yu Supang materials (including photonic/phonon crystals and grating/sound grid structures), the novel physical effects associated with the Dirac dispersion curve, and the study of wave losses in the materials of the superstructure.

Xiuxiu Ma received the B.S. and M.Eng. degrees in control engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2014 and 2016, respectively. And Ph.D. in Electrial and Computer Engineering from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in 2025. She joined the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2021. Her research interests include TDOA Localization, high dimensional statistics, and MIMO communication systems.

• TDOA Localization
• Massive MOMO
• Computer Simulations
• Computer Programming

Yingquan Li is an M.S./Ph.D. candidate in the KAUST Communication Theory Lab under the supervision of Professor Mohamed-Slim Alouini. Before joining KAUST, Yingquan earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Yingquan's research interests include advanced signal detecting and processing, hardware implementation of key communication technology and underwater optical wireless communication. Li is focusing in the area of digital signal processing, wireless optical communication and circuit design.