Mahima Aggarwal is a Research Assistant at Qatar Computing Research Institute where she focuses on anticipatory humanitarian actions using AI, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). Her work involves creating authentic datasets about natural disasters, training models, and generating scenarios for effective anticipatory actions. She is a key contributor to QarSUMO, a parallel, congestion-optimized traffic simulator built on SUMO. Her contributions include improving accuracy, dynamic rerouting, load balancing, and integrating reinforcement learning for dynamic traffic prediction and network repartitioning. Additionally, she contributed to adding features to an end-to-end browser-based simulation/visualization system for local stakeholders.

With a strong foundation in embedded systems and software engineering, Mahima brings over 15 years of expertise in research, development, and system design. Before her current role, Mahima worked as a research assistant at Qatar University’s KINDI Center for Computing Research, focusing on cybersecurity for next-generation healthcare systems. Her career also includes roles as a testing & commissioning engineer at Sony Professional Solutions, as well as software engineering positions at NXP (Freescale Semiconductor) and KritiKal Solutions.

Dr. Ahmed Lekssays is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Qatar Computing Research Institute. He obtained his PhD from the University of Insubria in Varese, Italy in 2022 funded by EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. His research interests include malware analysis, software security, and distributed systems.

Buthaina Al-Obaidli is a Master of Science student in Data Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University at Qatar, where her research focused on neural networks for multi-antenna communication channels at high spectral efficiency. Her current research explores quantum optimization for aviation applications, with a focus on aircraft recovery planning and operational efficiency. Professionally, she previously worked as a Radio Communications Station Licensing Engineer at the Communications Regulatory Authority (2022–2024). She is currently a Development Engineer at Qatar Airways, contributing to projects and introducing data-driven tools to enhance aircraft components and system performance, aircraft reliability, and preventive maintenance capabilities.

Noureldin Mohamed is a PhD student at the Qatar Center for Quantum Computing (QC2), Hamad Bin Khalifa University. His research spans quantum computing, quantum game theory, and quantum cryptography, with an emphasis on converting theoretical insights into secure and efficient communication systems. He earned both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Beijing Institute of Technology, where he was recognized as a distinguished graduate for outstanding academic performance. Noureldin’s ongoing work seeks to advance quantum-safe cryptographic mechanisms while maintaining a clear path from analysis to implementation.

Dr. Tasnim Mohiuddin is a Scientist in the Arabic Language Technologies group at Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), where he works on pioneering initiatives in the development and enhancement of Large Language Models (LLMs). He is a core contributor to the creation of Fanar, QCRI's flagship LLM. His current research focuses on domain-specific LLM innovations, including specialized areas such as Code LLMs and Multimodal LLMs.

Before joining QCRI, Dr. Tasnim was a researcher at Huawei Research Center in Singapore, where he concentrated on multimodal representation learning, bridging both linguistic and visual modalities. His research contributions have been consistently recognized through publications in leading academic conferences.

Tasnim completed his doctoral studies at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, receiving his PhD in June 2022 under the mentorship of Professor Shafiq Joty. His doctoral dissertation was honored with the prestigious Outstanding PhD Thesis Award, reflecting the originality and impact of his research. During his doctoral studies, he also gained valuable experience as a research intern at Meta AI Research, working under the guidance of Professor Philipp Koehn.

Mohamed Elfeky is a Principal Software Engineer at Qatar Computing Research Institute. Before joining QCRI, he was a Senior Software/Research Engineer at Google, USA. He joined Google in 2005 after receiving his PhD in Computer Science from Purdue University.

At Google, Mohamed worked on many products, including Translate, AdSpam, Transliteration, and Search Query Understanding. More recently, Mohamed joined the Google Speech Recognition team in New York where he launched the Arabic Speech Recognition Model, and later helped the team grow the number of recognized languages to over 100. Mohamed has received two Founders’ awards at Google and he also has two patents under his name.

Basel Mousi is a Research Assistant at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), specializing in natural language processing. His research interests include the interpretability of deep language models and machine translation for low-resource languages. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering with distinction from the American University of Beirut. Additionally, he has published papers in leading NLP conferences, such as EMNLP, ACL, and COLING.

Dr. Ma’moun Al-Rawashdeh is an Associate Professor in the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He received his MSc (CumLaude) and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands in 2013. With 7 years of industrial experience working at Jordan's Refinery, IMM Institute in Germany, and Albemarle Catalyst Company in the Netherlands. He helped commercialize three hydro-processing catalysts and led many R&D projects related to different types of reactor designs, heterogenous catalyst manufacturing, and testing.

He joined Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMUQ) as an Assistant Professor in 2019. At TAMUQ, he established key industry partnerships, secured external research funding from industry and QNRF, built key experimental infrastructure in Qatar, published 23 peer-reviewed journal articles (37 in total), invented 3 US provisional patents, 45 scientific contributions, and has invited talks at national and international levels.

His research focuses on developing novel reactors and process technologies related to making sustainable and circular fuels and chemicals. Dr. Al-Rawashdeh is chairing and co-chairing graduate doctoral and master students, and teaches courses in chemical reaction, reactor engineering, and applied catalysis. He serves as guest editor and peer reviewer for leading journals, chairing and co-organizing AICHE international sessions, and organizes various conferences and workshops involving industry-academic-government.

Dr. Sara Hillman is an associate professor of Applied Linguistics and English at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She holds a PhD in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University, where her research centered on identity formation and community building in an Arabic heritage language classroom. Before joining HBKU, Dr. Hillman taught for nine years at Texas A&M University in Qatar and served as the foundation English program coordinator. At TAMUQ, Dr. Hillman was recognized for her teaching excellence with the Dean’s Faculty Teaching Excellence Award in 2023 and the Liberal Arts Faculty of the Year Award from the Department of Student Affairs in 2022.

Dr. Hillman’s research examines the intersections of language, identity, and communication in educational and multilingual contexts, with a focus on Qatar. Her work has been published in top-tier academic journals, including TESOL Quarterly, System, Linguistics and Education, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, Language Learning Journal, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, and many others. She has also contributed numerous chapters to edited volumes focused on language, identity, and higher education in the Gulf and Arab world.

Malek Anabtawi is a research associate at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). He is responsible for developing real-world applications for the Institute's projects, currently SIHA project. Prior to joining QCRI, Malek worked as a research assistant at Hamad Medical Corporation, where he studied the application of robotics and mixed-reality in minimally invasive surgeries. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, earned in 2018 and 2019, respectively.