CSE Faculty and Staff Honored at CENG End-of-Year Awards Ceremony 2026
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) proudly celebrates the achievements of its faculty and staff who were recognized at the College of Engineering (CENG) End-of-Year Event held on June 3rd, 2026. The ceremony highlighted outstanding contributions in teaching, learning, service, and administrative support across the college. It also provided an opportunity to recognize and appreciate faculty and staff members who will be leaving the College of Engineering, acknowledging their dedication and valuable contributions over the years.
Among the award recipients, Prof. Junaid Qadir received the Dean’s Award for Teaching and Learning (Faculty Members Category) for the academic year 2026, recognizing his dedication to educational excellence and student success.
In the Teaching Assistants Category, Eng. Farah El-Qawasma received the Dean’s Award for Teaching and Learning for the academic year 2026, acknowledging her commitment to student learning, innovative teaching practices, and academic support.
The Dean’s Award for Administrative Staff (Administrative Support Category) was presented to Mrs. Elham Mukhtar in recognition of her exceptional dedication and contributions to supporting the college’s academic and administrative operations.
The College of Engineering also recognized and thanked faculty and staff members who will be leaving the college. Among them was Eng. Georges Younes from the CSE Department. The department expresses its sincere appreciation for his contributions and wishes him continued success in his future journey.
The CSE Department extends its sincere congratulations to all award recipients for their well-deserved achievements and thanks them for their continued commitment to excellence in education, service, and support. The department also expresses its gratitude to all departing colleagues for their years of dedication and contributions to the college community.
We are proud of these accomplishments and wish all award recipients and departing colleagues continued success in their future endeavors.
CSE Students Secure First Place Awards at CENG Capstone Design Competition 2026
Two Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) senior project teams proudly received first-place awards at the CENG Capstone Design Competition 2026, held on June 2, 2026. The competition featured two categories: Best Prototype and Best Marketable Design, highlighting innovative projects developed by graduating students across the College of Engineering.
The first-place award in the Best Prototype category was presented to the project “ITA’AM – Autonomous Assistive Feeding Robot: An AI-Powered Feeding Assistant for People with Upper-Limb Disabilities.” The project was developed by Computer Engineering students Abdallah Alkanani, Ali Ghazi, Khaled Qarawi, and Abdulrahman Shabban under the supervision of Dr. Ahmed Badawy.
ITA’AM addresses the challenges faced by individuals with upper-limb disabilities who often have limited options for independent eating. The project introduces a low-cost autonomous feeding assistant that combines robotic manipulation, computer vision, facial-gesture interaction, reinforcement learning, and ROS 2 communication to support safe, hygienic, and dignified independent feeding. Through its innovative design and AI-powered capabilities, the project demonstrates the potential of assistive robotics to enhance quality of life and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.
The first-place award in the Best Marketable Design category was awarded to “A’BER – AI-Powered Dysarthria Speech Therapy System.” The project was developed by Computer Engineering students Yahya Abdulselam, Aiman Alhetari, Abdelrahman Kotb, and Ahmed Mohamed under the supervision of Dr. Moutaz Saleh.
A’BER is an AI-driven speech therapy platform designed to support individuals with dysarthria, a motor speech disorder commonly caused by neurological conditions such as stroke, cerebral palsy, and Parkinson’s disease. The system integrates speech impairment severity detection, phoneme-level error analysis, and personalized therapy planning using advanced machine learning models and large language models. Delivered through an accessible web application, the platform provides patients with adaptive therapy exercises and AI-generated feedback, offering a scalable solution that can improve access to speech rehabilitation services.
These achievements reflect the creativity, technical excellence, and dedication of our students and faculty supervisors. The awarded projects demonstrate how innovative engineering solutions can address real-world challenges in healthcare and accessibility while creating meaningful societal impact.
Winning Projects in CSE-SDP SP26 Contests Day
On May 6th 2026, the highly anticipated senior project presentations took place in the Engineering Building H07. These remarkable projects, the culmination of tireless efforts by talented students, were subjected to rigorous evaluation by examiners from the CSE department. After careful deliberation, outstanding projects from each program, Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE), emerged victorious. Exceptional teams of those winners will be chosen to proudly represent our department in the upcoming college contest. We eagerly anticipate the success that awaits our representatives as they compete at the college level, confident in their abilities, to make our department proud once again.
Winning Projects in CSE-SDP S26 Contests Day
CE Rank 1
Project title: Findy – Lost & Found Robot
Students: Baraah Qafisheh, Enas Ghilan, Leen Sukik, Mirna Abou Tafish
Supervisor: Dr. Mohammed Al-Sada
CE Rank 2
Project title: D-SCAN: Multi-Drone Radar Scanning for Collapsed Buildings
Students: Abdulla Al-Hussaini, Mohammed Alharbi, Rami Abendeh, Abdelrahman Hasan
Supervisor: Prof. Amr Mohamed
CE Rank 3
Project title: sinara – Multimodal System for Real-Time Arabic Air-Writing and Qatari Sign Language Recognition
Students: Wadha Al-Hemaidi, Alanoud Al-Thani, Fatima Al-Thani, Nouf Ali
Supervisor: Prof. Sumaya Al-Maadeed
CS Rank 1
Project title: CallGuard – Spam call detection for cybersecurity
Students: Hala Hamdoun, Arwa Alobeid, Roqayah Ata omar, Haya Hamdoun
Supervisor: Prof. Mahmoud Barhamgi
CS Rank 2
Project title: Cyber Majlis – Where Qatari Culture Meets Malware Awareness
Students: Hala Al-Dosari, Habiba Khattab, Sara Ibrahim, Fatima Zahra Brahamia
Supervisor: Prof. Khaled Khan
CS Rank 3
Project title: HireAI – Multi-Agent LLM System For Faculty Shortlisting
Students: Hamza Aljaji, Abdulla Al-Hajri, Saoud ALMehsen, Abubaker Elfagih
Supervisor: Prof. Cagatay Catal
CSE Faculty Members Secure U.S. Patent for Advancing Quantification of Cloud Security
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Qatar University is proud to highlight a significant research achievement by its faculty members Dr. Khaled Khan and Dr. Noora Fetais and their team, who have been awarded a U.S. patent for their innovative work in cloud security systems.
The patented work, titled “Quantifying Satisfaction of Security Features of Cloud Software Systems,” has been granted under Patent No. US 12579277 B2 (2026). This achievement reflects the department’s continued commitment to impactful research and innovation at the intersection of cybersecurity, software engineering, and advanced computational methods.
The invention is the result of a collaborative effort with Dr. Armstrong Nhlabatsi from the KINDI Research Centre, further demonstrating interdisciplinary collaboration within Qatar University.
This patented research introduces a novel approach to evaluating the effectiveness of security countermeasures in cloud software systems. Traditionally, the satisfaction of security requirements has been expressed using binary Boolean values—either satisfied (true) or not satisfied (false). However, such a simplistic representation often fails to capture the complexity and nuanced nature of real-world security systems. To address this limitation, the research team developed a method that quantifies the satisfaction of security features on a continuous scale ranging from 0.0 to 1.0. Drawing inspiration from financial systems and economic modeling, the proposed approach considers multiple interacting factors, including defense strength, system vulnerabilities, exploitability, and attack severity. Furthermore, the research extends the concept of entailment relationships—commonly used in requirements engineering—to the domain of security satisfiability. This enables a more sophisticated and mathematically grounded representation of how security requirements are fulfilled in complex systems. The patented method establishes an algebraic relationship that models the satisfaction of a security requirement as a function of both defensive mechanisms and potential attack vectors. This allows security administrators to make precise, data-driven decisions regarding the adjustment of security countermeasures. As a result, organizations can achieve optimal security configurations while avoiding unnecessary costs associated with over-engineering or ineffective implementations.
By moving beyond binary evaluation methods, this innovation provides a more accurate, flexible, and actionable framework for managing cloud security. It represents a significant advancement in the field and has strong potential for real-world application in securing modern software systems.
For more details about the patent, please visit:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US12579277B2/en
CSE Faculties Receive Best Paper Awards at ECIR 2026 and IC3IT 2026
The Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department at Qatar University proudly celebrates two major research achievements by its faculty members at the international stage. Dr. Mucahid Kutlu and Dr. Cagatay Catal have each received Best Paper Awards at international conferences—European Conference on Information Retrieval 2026 and International Conference on Innovative and Intelligent Information Technologies 2026—highlighting the department’s strong contributions to impactful and innovative research in Artificial Intelligence and Information Retrieval.
Dr. Mucahid Kutlu received the Best “IR for Good” Paper Award at ECIR 2026 for his paper titled “Measuring Political Stance and Consistency in Large Language Models.” The research reflects strong undergraduate engagement, with contributions from CSE undergraduate students Salah Feras Alali and Mohammad Nashat Maasfeh. The research is in collaboration with Dr. Saban Kardas from the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University.
The research investigates how large language models express political stances across major global issues, including the Israel–Palestinian conflict, the Russia–Ukraine war, and China’s policies toward Uyghur Turks. It further examines the consistency of these stances under different prompting strategies. The findings reveal that, in many cases, models adopt identifiable positions rather than remaining neutral, and that these positions often persist despite attempts to influence responses through prompting. The study highlights the critical importance of digital literacy and encourages users to approach AI-generated content—particularly on sensitive political topics—with caution and critical awareness. This work was supported by the Qatar National Research Fund under UREP grant (UREP 32-0301-250278).
In another remarkable achievement, Dr. Cagatay Catal received the Best Paper Award at IC3IT 2026, held in Hammamet, Tunisia (26–28 March 2026), for his paper titled “Artificial Intelligence for Algorithm Discovery: A Three-Dimensional Framework.”
The paper explores a transformative direction in Computer Science, where Artificial Intelligence is leveraged to automatically discover algorithms—moving beyond traditional design paradigms such as divide-and-conquer, dynamic programming, greedy methods, backtracking, and branch-and-bound. By integrating advances in Deep Reinforcement Learning and Large Language Models, the study proposes a novel three-dimensional framework that connects problem domains, discovery techniques, and optimization objectives.
The research also includes a case study demonstrating how the framework can systematically classify AI-based algorithm discovery systems and clarify their contributions. This work is closely linked to an ongoing QRDI-funded research project at Qatar University focused on AI-based smart aquaponics systems. In this context, algorithm discovery is expected to play a key role in enhancing multi-objective optimization, adaptive system control, and resource efficiency—supporting innovative solutions for food security and sustainable agriculture.
These achievements reflect the CSE Department’s continued commitment to advancing research excellence, fostering innovation, and addressing real-world challenges through cutting-edge technologies.
CSE Students Achieve Top Honors at Huawei ICT Competition 2025–2026 Innovation Track
The Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department at Qatar University is proud to announce the remarkable achievement of its students in the Huawei ICT Competition 2025–2026 – Innovation Track.
CSE teams delivered outstanding performance, demonstrating strong teamwork, confident presentations, and advanced technical expertise. Their success reflects not only their dedication and innovative mindset, but also the high-quality academic preparation and mentorship fostered within the department.
🏆Winning Teams:
🥇1st Place : Team Aber
Students: Abdelrahman Kotb, Yahya Abdulselam, and Aiman Alhetari
Instructor: Dr. Moutaz Saleh
🥈2nd Place: Team Vora
Students: Anas Rustom, Mazen Essam Soliman Assayed, and Huzayfa Khamis
Instructor: Eng. Abdulahi Hassen
The Huawei ICT Competition is a globally recognized platform that brings together talented students to design and implement innovative, AI-driven solutions to real-world challenges. The Innovation Track emphasizes creativity, technical excellence, and the ability to transform ideas into impactful technological applications.
We are especially proud that the winning teams will represent Qatar at the Regional Final Stage in March 2026, competing alongside teams from approximately 14 countries across the Middle East and Central Asia (ME&CA) region. This achievement marks a significant milestone on the path toward the Global Final Stage.
The CSE Department extends its sincere congratulations to all participating students and their dedicated instructors. We remain committed to empowering future ICT leaders and supporting initiatives that promote innovation, excellence, and meaningful global engagement.
