Profiles

Salman Ghori is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working in the Aerospace and Transportation Systems research group under the supervision of Professor Eric Feron. Before joining KAUST, he earned a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome and worked as a Senior Engineer at ZF Friedrichshafen AG.

Salman's research focuses on autonomous traffic management, optimization-based control, multi-agent coordination, safety-critical autonomy, and real-time robotic validation. His work combines Model Predictive Control, Mixed-Integer Linear Programming, and safety-critical control methods to study efficient and fair coordination of autonomous agents in constrained environments.

Samy Mounir recently graduated from UCLouvain in Belgium with a B.Sc. in Engineering, specializing in Software and Mathematical Engineering. His diverse experiences include AI internships at KAUST and Belixys, as well as optimization and data analysis projects using real-world data. His research focuses on leveraging cutting‐edge AI techniques to solve practical problems.

Samy’s research centers on applied AI solutions with a focus on computer vision and smart city applications. He is currently working on plant monitoring using UAVs and computer vision techniques.

Saud received his bachelor's degree in 2023 in Physics from King Fahad University of Petroleum and minerals (KFUPM). He is currently working towards a master’s degree under the supervision of Prof. Yating Wan at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Saud’s research interests are in applications of integrate photonics for optical computing and LiDAR.

Shahd Shami is a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAUST, specializing in robotics and control systems. Before that, she worked as a Teaching Assistant at King Abdulaziz University, where she gained hands-on experience in AI projects and technology solutions. Shahd received her M.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from KAUST, focusing on machine learning and robot planning, and her B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia.

Shahd's research focuses on developing adaptive and intelligent control mechanisms to enhance robotic systems' autonomy and efficiency in dynamic environments. She combines classical control theory with advanced machine learning algorithms to create models that improve robotic performance, adaptability, and interaction with uncertain environments. Areas of interest: • Adaptive control systems for robotics • Machine learning integration in control mechanisms • Advanced sensor technologies for robotics • System integration and implementation of AI solutions • Robotics education and training

Shaopeng is a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at KAUST. Before that, He was as an algorithm engineer at the trustworthy AI research group at JD Explore Academy, JD.com, Inc. He received MPhil in Computer Science from The University of Sydney, Australia, and B.Sc in Mathematics from the South China University of Technology, China.

His research lies in trustworthy machine learning, especially the security and privacy aspects of machine learning. He is interested in using mathematical principles to identify and mitigate security and privacy risks in real-world machine learning systems.

Shuai Lu is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), supervised by Professor Gabriel Wittum and working in the Modeling and Simulations Lab. He completed his B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT) in 2015. He received his master’s degree in Solid Mechanics at Beihang University in 2018.

Shuming Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the GenAI Center of Excellence, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), advised by Prof. Bernard Ghanem. He received his master's degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

He was a Research Scientist Intern with Qwen in 2026, working on long-horizon agentic multimodal reasoning for Qwen-VL models, and with Meta AI in 2025 and 2026, focusing on adaptive reasoning and on-policy self-distillation for video-language models.

He has published multiple papers at leading conferences, including CVPR, ECCV, and ICLR, and has won first place in several CVPR challenges.

Shuming Liu's research focuses on video understanding and multimodal large language models, with recent work spanning adaptive video reasoning, efficient long-video modeling, and temporal video understanding.

Siyuan Chen is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), supervised by Prof. Xin Gao and Prof. Yu Li at CUHK. His research lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, computational biology, and healthcare, with a focus on developing deep learning methods for genomics, biomedical imaging analysis, and omics-based disease detection and diagnostics. His work has been published in leading journals including Genome Research, Science Advances, Journal of Molecular Biology, Nature Communications, Bioinformatics, Briefings in Bioinformatics, and IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. His academic service includes reviewing for Bioinformatics, Briefings in Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, and MICCAI.

Siyuan’s research interests center on developing AI methods to address challenges in biology and healthcare. His expertise spans genomic data analysis, biomedical applications of large language models, biomedical image analysis, and omics-based disease detection. His work emphasizes enhancing model reasoning, evaluating AI safety, automating multi-omics analysis, and enabling multimodal interactions to support personalized healthcare.

Soumia Si Youcef is an electronics engineer and graduate student at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), currently specializing in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her work bridges the fields of electronics and artificial intelligence, with a focus on healthcare innovation.

Dedicated electronics engineer currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAUST. With a strong foundation in electronics and artificial intelligence, she focuses on designing innovative healthcare application devices. Her research-driven mindset, hands-on experience in sensor-based projects, and commitment to impactful innovation reflect my dedication to pushing the boundaries of engineering in service of human well-being.

• Intelligent healthcare devices
• Sensor design and integration
• Artificial intelligence in biomedical systems
• Electronic system prototyping

Talha Ariff was awarded his BEng/MEng degree in Biomedical Engineering from City, University of London in 2022, where he focused on optoelectronic devices for use in medical and chemical sensing.
He is now a Ph.D. student in the Photonics Lab at KAUST, researching further applications for optoelectronic sensors in desert agriculture and undersea communication cables.

Marine Ecology & Desert agriculture, Sensors, Photonics & Optoelectronics

Tingang Liu is a Ph.D student in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at KAUST under the supervision of Prof. Xiaohang Li. He got his bachelor’s degree in 2022 from University of Electronics Science and Technology of China and his master’s degree in 2023 from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

Tingang's research focuses on ultra-wide bandgap Al-rich AlGaN based power devices for next generation power systems. He has experience on material epitaxy by MOCVD, various material characterization tools, and advanced device fabrication process.

Wenbo Yan received the B.Eng. degree in Materials Science and Engineering from South China University of Technology, China, in 2021, and M.S. degree in Material Science and Engineering in 2022 from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAUST under the supervision of Prof. Boon S. Ooi.

Wenbo's research focuses on VCSEL design, coherence engineering, thermal management, optical communication, and photonic device fabrication.