I have been promoted to the rank of Full Professor of Computer science at our CSE department in Oct 2024.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
My deep gratitude goes to the members of my research group, the PhD and MSc students. Without their efforts, tireless work, perseverance, and dedication, our research would not have been published in the best international publishing venues, and our team and research would not have achieved the international reputation it deserves. I would especially like to thank Reem Suwaileh, Maram Hasanain, Rana Malhas, Fatima Haouari, Watheq Mansour, Marwa Essam, and Zein Sheikh Ali<\/strong>, besides the great collaborators\u00a0Dr. Matt Lease (UT-Austin), Dr. Mohammad Imran (QCRI), Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Ali (QU), and Dr. Mucahid Kutlu (QU)<\/strong>. I am indebted to all of them (and to my family, of course) for this success, and they are certainly partners in my promotion.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tMar 27 2024<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Outstanding Reviewer Award at ECIR 2025<\/div>
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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2025\/01\/ECIR24-Outstanding-Reviewer-Award-1-1024x770.jpeg\")
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\n\t\t Received the “
Outstanding Reviewer Award<\/strong>” from ECIR 2024.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tMay 2023<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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CENG Dean\u2019s Award for Excellence in Research 2023<\/div>
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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2023\/08\/CENG-Deans-Award-for-Excellence-in-Research-2023-Receiving.jpg\")
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\n\t\t Received the Dean\u2019s Award for Excellence in Research from College of Engineering, Qatar University.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tApril 2022<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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NPRP Research Grant Awarded (14th Cycle): Dimension-Specific Automated Scoring of Arabic Language Writing Proficiency<\/div>
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Dimension-Specific Automated Scoring of Arabic Language Writing Proficiency<\/strong><\/p>\nFunded by<\/strong>: Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF)
\nProject no.<\/strong>: NPRP14S-0402-210127
\nRole:<\/strong> Lead PI
\nTitle:<\/strong> Dimension-Specific Automated Scoring of Arabic Language Writing Proficiency
\nCollaborators:<\/strong> Dr. Houda Bouamor (CMUQ) Dr. Walid Massoud (Qatar University)
\nStart Date<\/strong>: 30 Mar 2023
\nEnd Date<\/strong>: 30 Mar 2026\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tNovember 2021<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Best Reviewer Award at CIKM 2021<\/div>
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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2022\/08\/CIKM21-Best-Reviewer-Award-1024x573.jpg\")
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\n\t\t Received the ``Best Reviewer Award`` at CIKM 2021.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tMay 2021<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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2nd Best CS Senior Project 2021 at QU<\/div>
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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2021\/08\/2nd-Best-CS-Senior-Project-1024x800.jpg\")
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\n\t\t My senior students, whom I supervised for their graduation project, has achieved the second place among the best CS Senior Project for the academic year 2020-2021, with the project titled \u201cCheck it Before You Spread it! Hadith Verification over Twitter\u201d. Proud of the work of the student Aisha Al-Mirza, Fatima Al Majid, and Maryam Al-Jabir, and the goal of the project too. Congratulations !!!\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tApril 2021<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Best Paper Award at WANLP 2021<\/div>
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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2021\/08\/best-paper-award-WANLP-2021-1024x704.jpg\")
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\n\t\t Three of my PhD students, Fatima Haouari, Maram Hasanain, and Reem Suwaileh, have won the \u201cBest Paper Award\u201d on their paper titled \u201cArCOV19-Rumors: Arabic COVID-19 Twitter Dataset for Misinformation Detection\u201d at the 6th Workshop on Arabic Natural Language Processing (WANLP 2021). WANLP is the premier venue for Arabic NLP and it was sponsored this year by Google.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tApril 2021<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Best Doctoral Consortium Paper Award at ECIR 2021<\/div>
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![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2021\/08\/Marwa-Essam-PhD-Best-Doctoral-Consortium-Paper-Award-at-ECIR-2021.jpg\")
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\n\t\t My PhD student Marwa Essam got the \u201cBest Doctoral Consortium Paper Award\u201d for her PhD proposal titled ``News Background Linking`` at ECIR 2021 conference, one of the top IR conferences.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tNovember 2019<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Ranked 2nd at TREC News Track 2019<\/div>
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\n\t\t Our QU team (Marwa Essam and me) got ranked 2nd at TREC 2019 in News (among 9 international teams).\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tAugust 2019<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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GSRA Research Grant Awarded (Fatima Haouari)<\/div>
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\n\t\t My prospective PhD student Fatima Haouari has been awarded GSRA research grant funding from QNRF for her PhD study at Qatar University.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tJune 2019<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Third MSc with Distinction (Sara Al-Rasbi)<\/div>
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\n\t\t My student Sara Al-Rasbi has successfully defended her MSc thesis titled ``SparkIR: A Scalable Distributed Information Retrieval Engine over Spark`` and got her degree *with Distinction* (with consensus of all members of the examination committee) for the third time within my group. This happens rarely in the College of Engineering at Qatar University!
\nExamination committee included Prof. Omar Bossaid (Universit\u00e9 Lumi\u00e8re Lyon 2) and Dr. Aiman Erbad (QU).\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tNovember 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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NPRP Research Grant Awarded (11th Cycle): Early Detection of Fake News over Arabic Social Media<\/div>
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Early Detection of Fake News over Arabic Social Media<\/strong><\/p>\nFunded by<\/strong>: Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF)
\nProject no.<\/strong>: NPRP11S-1204-170060
\nRole:<\/strong> Lead PI<\/strong>
\nTitle:<\/strong> Early Detection of Fake News over Arabic Social Media<\/strong>
\nCollaborators:<\/strong> Dr. Walid Magdy (University of Edinburgh) and Dr.\u00a0Abdulaziz Alali (Qatar University)
\nStart Date<\/strong>: June 2019
\nEnd Date<\/strong>: December 2022\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tAugust 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Promotion to Associate Professor of Computer Science<\/div>
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\n\t\t I have been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of Computer science at our CSE department in Aug 2018.<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t have achieved this without the help and contribution of every single one of my research group! Without their effort, dedication, understanding, and even dreaming and do\u2019aa, *we* wouldn\u2019t achieve it. And I really mean *we* as I believe the group deserve it as much as I do. The journey wasn\u2019t just mine \u2013 I\u2019m deeply grateful to every one of them!<\/p>\n
Thanks are also due to all of my (former and current) students, research assistants, and collaborators. This promotion is attributed to a long list of them.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tAugust 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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GSRA Research Grant Awarded (Reem Suwaileh)<\/div>
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\n\t\t My prospective PhD student Reem Suwaileh has been awarded GSRA research grant funding from QNRF for her PhD study at Qatar University.
\nGreat achievement — Congratulations Reem!\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tJune 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Second MSc with Distinction (Reem Suwaileh)<\/div>
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\n\t\t My student Reem Suwaileh has successfully defended her MSc thesis titled ``On the Relevance Filtering for Real-time Summarization`` and got her degree *with Distinction* (with consensus of all members of the examination committee) for the second time within my group. This happens rarely in the College of Engineering at Qatar University!
\nExamination committee included Prof. Ali Jaoua (QU), Dr. Abdelkarim Erradi(QU), and Prof. Fazly Can (Bilkent University).\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tMay 2018<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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CSE Excellence in Services Award (2017\/2018)<\/div>
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\n\t\t Received the Excellence in Services award from Computer Science and Engineering Dept. at Qatar University for the academic year 2017\/2018.\n\t\t <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/li>\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tNovember 2016<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Ranked 1st at TREC RTS Track 2016<\/div>
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\n\t\t Our bigIR (representing QU) team has been ranked first at TREC (Text REtrieval Conference) 2016 international research competition in the \u201cReal-time Summarization\u201d track (mobile notification task) among 19 research teams (who have participated with automatic systems) from all over the world (see a list of teams below). This is the first time in the history of this prestigious conference (which is celebrating the 25th anniversary this year) for an Arab Muslim team to be ranked first in any of the tracks. Among the participating teams are 2 teams from University of Waterloo (Canada) and 2 teams from University of Maryland (US).<\/p>\n
QU team includes Reem Suwaileh (MSc student) and Maram Hasanain (PhD student), besides me.<\/p>\n
The same QU team has been also ranked 2nd among 15 research teams at another task (Email Digest) within the same track! Moreover, another QU team (including Rana Malhas (PhD student), Marwan Torki (PostDoc), and Rahma Ali (MSc student), besides me) has been ranked 4th among 16 research teams at the \u201cLive Question Answering\u201d track. Both were also impressive rankings.<\/p>\n
Participating teams (Real-time Summarization, Push Notification Scenario):<\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2016\/11\/HCOMP16-Best-Paper-Award-1024x768.jpg\")
\n\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t ![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/qufaculty.qu.edu.qa\/telsayed\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/113\/2015\/12\/AIRS-2015-Best-Paper-Award-1024x719.png\")
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