GLOBAL AI LEADERS ATTRACTED TO ABU DHABI

Excellence in artificial intelligence starts with building a world-class faculty that is able to develop talented students, as well as to train and enlighten executives and existing thought leaders from the UAE’s business ecosystem and public sector.

Helping to meet national ambitions to become a leader in AI and to enhance the science-based prestige of the country will require research and innovation by talented people, and an ability to partner with others on innovative projects – understanding challenges and opportunities, as well as collaborating on solutions.

A TOTAL OF 34 FACULTY HAVE BEEN ADDED SINCE 2021 – AN 80% RISE

There are currently 45 members of the faculty – 18 of whom arrived in 2022, increasing the faculty size by 42% in one year. Indeed, a total of 34 faculty have been added since 2021, an 80% rise. The new arrivals are helping to enhance the university’s rankings, prestige, and capacity for innovation, research and talent development.

Professor of Machine Learning Fakhreddine Karray

Fakhreddine Karray was announced as Provost in August 2021 and will become a full-time member of the research faculty in 2023. Karray previously worked at the University of Waterloo in Canada, where his roles included founding the Centre for Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and the Waterloo AI Institute, as well as holding the Loblaws Research Chair in AI. Karray is a Fellow at the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Engineering Institute of Canada, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Karray’s research interests include operational AI, cognitive machines, natural human-machine interaction, and autonomous and intelligent systems. These can be used for technologies such as self-aware machines, intelligent transportation systems and predictive analytics for managing supply chains.

Professor of Statistics Agathe Guilloux

Agathe Guilloux joined the faculty as a Professor of Statistics. She comes to MBZUAI from Evry Paris Saclay University in France, where she headed the mathematics laboratory – a team of 45 faculty and staff, and 15 post-doctoral students and Ph.D. students. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at Sorbonne University and she holds a Ph.D. from Université de Rennes I in Rennes, France.

Guilloux’s research interests include applying statistical learning to health care. One element of her work is designing algorithms to solve the problems physicians and researchers confront in personalized medicine. In this process, she uses electronic health records and observational data from field visits to propose prediction models in clinical settings.

Professor of Natural Lagnague Processing Timothy Baldwin

Timothy Baldwin was appointed Associate Provost for Academic and Student Affairs in March 2022 and serves as Acting Department Chair for MBZUAI’s Natural Language Processing (NLP) Department. Baldwin previously spent 17 years at the University of Melbourne in Australia, where he served as Melbourne Laureate Professor and as Director of the ARC Training Centre in Cognitive Computing for Medical Technologies, among other leadership roles. Baldwin has held visiting positions at Cambridge University, the University of Washington, the University of Tokyo and Germany’s Saarland University.

Baldwin’s research interests at NLP include deep learning, algorithmic fairness, computational social science and social media analytics. These technologies are crucial for virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, as well as for chatbots and digital translation tools. Baldwin’s primary focus will be on developing a world-class NLP team to improve the underlying technologies. MBZUAI and the UAE expect Baldwin to play a key role in helping to integrate next-generation AI and leverage NLP for a more equitable world.

Assistant Professor of Natural Language Processing Hanan Al Darmaki

Hanan Al Darmaki joined the MBZUAI faculty as Assistant Professor of NLP in August 2022 and she will be a member of Baldwin’s NLP Department. Al Darmaki plans to focus on improving automated speech recognition for languages that currently lack sufficient data to train computational models to offer accurate speech recognition.

MBZUAI Assistant Professor Hanan Al Darmaki

Arabic is one of the languages facing this challenge due to the wide range of spoken dialects, which tend to diverge considerably from the standard written form. Al Darmaki hopes to address this with a technique called unsupervised speech recognition, which seeks to use spoken language rather than written text, identifying words that commonly appear close together in sentences.

Al Darmaki came to MBZUAI from UAE University, where she was an Assistant Professor at the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department. She has also worked in several public sector roles, including as an analyst at Statistics CentreAbu Dhabi and a network engineer for the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority.

Professor of Computer Vision Abdulmotaleb El Saddik

Abdulmutaleb El Saddik joined the faculty in 2021 as Acting Department Chair of Computer Vision and Professor of Computer Vision.

MBZUAI Professor and Acting Computer Vision Department Chair Abdulmutaleb El Saddik

He comes to MBZUAI from the University of Ottawa in Canada, where he served as a distinguished university professor and University Research Chair in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. El Saddik’s academic accolades include fellowships in the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Institute of Canada, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

HELPING TO MEET NATIONAL AMBITIONS TO BECOME A LEADER IN AI AND TO ENHANCE THE SCIENCE-BASED PRESTIGE OF THE COUNTRY WILL REQUIRE RESEARCH AND INNOVATION BY TALENTED PEOPLE

At MBZUAI El Saddik has helped to develop digital twin technology, a precise form of computer simulation wherein objects or systems in the real world are digitally replicated at the greatest level of detail possible, with their states mirrored in real time. El Saddik is recognised as a global expert in the field, which does not rely on any single technology. Rather, it combines many prominent themes, including AI, blockchain, edge computing, big data, virtual reality and the internet of things.

Other new arrivals to MBZUAI’s fast-growing faculty include Hao Li, Associate Professor of Computer Vision and Director of the Metaverse Lab, Kun Zhang, Deputy Department Chair of Machine Learning, Associate Professor of Machine Learning, and Director of the Centre for Integrative AI, and Muhammad Abdul-Mageed Associate Professor of natural language processing.

MBZUAI Associate Professor and Deputy Department Chair of Machine Learning Kun Zhang

In 2022 MBZUAI welcomed five new adjunct faculty members including Shahrukh Hashmi, Eran Segal, Eric Moulines, Peter Richtárik and Hava Siegelmann. 2022 Also saw the university welcome four new visiting faculty members including Gus Xia, Xiaodan Liang, Bhiksha Ramakrishnan and Tongliang Liu.