Open to PhD Positions · Fall 2026

Kareem Waly

Machine Learning Engineer & Published AI Researcher (IEEE)

|

I work at the intersection of rigorous research and production ML — from Graph Neural Networks for drug discovery to multimodal sentiment systems. Published at IEEE ASET 2025. Co-founder of AI-Talents (33 mentees). Technical Program Chair, IndabaX Egypt 2026.

For consulting, research discussion, or PhD opportunities
Kareem Waly
0
IEEE Publication
0
Live HF Spaces
0
Mentees · AI-Talents
A+
M.Eng · uOttawa

About Me

Research-first, impact-driven, cross-cultural.

I am a Machine Learning Engineer and published AI researcher whose work is driven by one idea: bridge rigorous research with real-world impact. My trajectory moved from Android and freelancing, through a Master's at the University of Ottawa, into production ML and IEEE-level research.

I hold an M.Eng in Data Science & AI from the University of Ottawa (A+, full DEBI scholarship) and a B.Sc. in Computer Science & Math from Helwan University (2nd in class). Over 2+ years I have specialized in deep learning, NLP, multimodal AI and generative systems, with production deployment experience.

My research on Predicting Drug-Drug Interactions using Graph Neural Networks was accepted and presented at IEEE ASET 2025. I also completed the Deep Dive into Blockchain Summer School at UZH, expanding my perspective on secure, decentralized systems.

I am actively seeking a PhD position where I can contribute to healthcare AI, multimodal learning, GNNs, or trustworthy ML.

Research-First Approach

From concept to peer-reviewed IEEE publication — proven end-to-end research capability.

Full ML Lifecycle

Preprocessing to deployment and monitoring. Spoken Language ID system with 90%+ accuracy in production.

Educator & Leader

Co-founded AI-Talents (33 mentees). Technical Program Chair at IndabaX Egypt 2026.

Cross-Cultural Collaborator

Egypt, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, UAE. Adaptable, open-minded, detail-oriented.

01 · Selected Systems

Four systems, each answers why · what · matters.

Not a projects gallery. These are the systems I stand behind — research-grade or production-ready, each with a clear reason to exist.

Flagship · IEEE

Graph Neural Networks for Drug–Drug Interaction Prediction

A GNN trained on DrugBank that flags risky drug pairings before clinicians prescribe them — published paper, peer-reviewed, demo-backed.

Why It Exists
Adverse drug interactions are a leading cause of hospital readmissions; existing systems miss novel pairs.
What It Does
Published IEEE ASET 2025. Graph Attention Network on molecular interaction graphs predicts pairs in real time.
Why It Matters
Peer-reviewed validation on DrugBank; reproducible pipeline; direct path to clinical decision support.
IEEE XploreASET 2025DrugBank 5.1
PyTorch GeometricGATDrugBank
Flagship · Multimodal

Multimodal Sentiment & Emotion System

Three-stream fusion (text · audio · video) that reads sentiment and emotion across English and Arabic video input — in real time.

Why It Exists
Text-only sentiment analysis is flat — it misses sarcasm, tone, and facial contradiction that multimodal signals capture.
What It Does
Fuses DeBERTa text, MFCC voice, and ArcFace video representations. Arabic cross-lingual transfer via AraBERT.
Why It Matters
80.06% accuracy across 7 emotions; works across languages; deployable as a real-time Gradio interface.
80.06% acc71.49M params7 emotions
PyTorchDeBERTaAraBERTArcFace
Flagship · Healthcare

Brain Tumor MRI Classifier

A CNN that triages MRI slices for tumor presence with clinician-readable confidence — deployed as a Gradio space for non-technical validation.

Why It Exists
Radiology backlogs delay diagnosis — an automated first-pass helps prioritize urgent cases.
What It Does
Transfer-learned CNN on curated MRI data. End-to-end: image reading → classification → confidence output with Grad-CAM visualization.
Why It Matters
Accessible to non-ML radiologists via a web interface; a technology can accelerate, not replace, clinical review.
Transfer LearningGrad-CAM
MRI classificationGrad-CAMLive Demo
Flagship · RAG

Hybrid RAG Pipeline for Log Forensics

A five-stage dense+sparse retrieval pipeline that turns 2M unstructured logs into grounded incident reports.

Why It Exists
Log analysis at scale is manual and error-prone; traditional search fails on unstructured, noisy operational data.
What It Does
BM25 + BGE hybrid retrieval, SBERT re-ranking, Qwen2.5-7B generation. Five pipeline stages from ingestion to report.
Why It Matters
+18% MAP over dense-only; generates grounded, citation-backed incident reports from raw logs.
+18% MAP2M log linesQwen2.5-7B
BM25BGESBERTQwen2.5

Secondary tier — shipped work, strong signal.

Below the flagships: five applied systems that round out the engineering breadth — agentic AI, distributed systems, AI speech, biometrics, security.

Applied· Agentic

AI Agent · Customer Support & Sales Analytics

Enterprise agentic workflow with CRM integration, automated support, and operational dashboards.

Agentic AICRMAnalyticsWorkflow
Private · implementation in progress
Applied· Systems AI

AI-Driven Dynamic Modeling · Distributed DBs

Three-phase AI framework for fragmentation (Random Forest 97.88%), replication (Q-Learning), and anomaly detection (LSTM autoencoder).

Random ForestQ-LearningLSTMDistributed
Deployed · infra-AI systems bridge
Applied· Speech

Spoken Language Identification

Production-deployed language-ID pipeline at AIM Technologies — 90%+ accuracy across the full ML lifecycle.

SpeechAudio ClassificationProduction
Shipped in industry · case study pending
Applied· Biometrics

Multimodal Biometric Authentication

Fused face + voice + fingerprint signals for robust identity verification under noise and spoofing.

FaceVoiceFingerprintFusion
Archived · systems-integration proof
Applied· Security

Next-Gen Intrusion Detection (GANs)

GAN-based generative modeling for anomaly-resistant intrusion detection on imbalanced attack distributions.

GANsAnomaly DetectionCybersecurity
Archived · cross-domain ML breadth

Publications

Peer-reviewed research.

Predicting Drug-Drug Interactions Using Graph Neural Networks: Towards Safer and Intelligent Prescriptions

Elsersy M., Waly K., Sherif A.

Proceedings of the 7th HCT ASET Conference · Abu Dhabi, UAE · 2025 · IEEE Xplore

My contribution: GNN architecture design, DrugBank data pipeline, benchmarking vs. baselines, co-authored writing.

Experience

Where research meets impact.

Technical Program Chair — IndabaX Egypt

2025 – Present

Lead the technical program for Egypt's largest AI/ML community conference. Curate the workshop track, recruit speakers and mentors, and shape the scientific direction.

Co-Founder & AI Researcher — AI-Talents EdTech

Oct 2023 – Present

Co-founded a mindset-first EdTech startup training the next generation of AI engineers across MENA. Architected the full curriculum. 33 active mentees.

Machine Learning Engineer — AIM Technologies

Aug 2022 – Feb 2023

Shipped production Spoken Language Identification with 90%+ accuracy — full ML lifecycle from preprocessing through deployment and monitoring.

Data Scientist Intern — Hertie School Data Science Lab

Aug – Sep 2023

Researched GANs for synthetic data generation. Contributed to ML pipeline design alongside senior researchers.

Research Interests

Where I want to go deeper in a PhD.

Healthcare AI

ML for drug discovery, clinical decision support, and Arabic medical NLP. Published IEEE work in drug-drug interactions.

Graph Neural Networks

Molecular property prediction, relational reasoning, dynamic graphs, scalability of GNNs on real-world datasets.

Multimodal AI

Fusion of text, audio, and visual signals. Cross-lingual Arabic / English sentiment and emotion recognition.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Hybrid dense-sparse retrieval, knowledge-grounded generation, evaluation of RAG under distribution shift.

Trustworthy ML

Robustness, anomaly detection, interpretability — so ML systems can be deployed in healthcare and critical settings with confidence.

Get in Touch

Research, PhD, or applied AI — I'd be glad to connect.

Whether you want to discuss a PhD opportunity, propose a research collaboration, or scope an applied AI engagement — I'd be glad to connect. For consulting, research discussion, or PhD opportunities, email me directly or book a short call.

🎓 Research / PhD discussion
💼 Freelance / consulting inquiry

Ways I Collaborate

Research collaboration, PhD discussion, consulting — same person, different tracks.

I work with both research teams and applied clients. My work sits between rigorous experimentation and production-ready AI systems — so I can contribute to research-oriented collaboration, consulting engagements, or full ML system development.

For Research & Academia

Labs · PhD programs · Joint research

Research Collaboration

Literature reviews, experiment design, baseline development, benchmarking, and model prototyping across multimodal AI, GNNs, RAG, and trustworthy ML.

PhD / Research Discussion

Open to PhD opportunities, research assistantships, and interdisciplinary collaborations where machine learning can contribute to meaningful scientific or societal impact.

Technical Mentoring & Workshops

Hands-on curriculum design, technical workshops, and mentoring for students, teams, and early-career AI practitioners.

For Applied AI & Consulting

Companies · Teams · Product

ML Engineering

Production-minded ML systems — from preprocessing and model training to deployment, monitoring, and iteration.

AI Agents & RAG Systems

Retrieval-augmented generation, tool-calling agents, and LLM-powered workflow automation for support, analytics, and internal knowledge systems.

Data Science & Applied Research

Exploratory analysis, modeling, reporting, and research-to-product translation for organizations that need both technical depth and practical delivery.

Looking for a research collaborator or an applied AI partner?

Email me directly or book a short call — choose Research / PhD or Consulting as the meeting type.

Email Me

Community & Volunteering

Growing the AI ecosystem in MENA and beyond.

IndabaX Egypt 2026

Technical Program Chair

AI-Talents EdTech

Co-Founder · 33 mentees

Curriculum

IEEE ASET 2025

Published Author & Presenter

DDiB 2025 · UZH

Ambassador — Blockchain program

Ambassadors

Data Science Conf MENA 2024

Attendee

Skills

Research to production.

Research

GNNsMultimodal AIRAGAI AgentsGen AIRLAnomaly Detection

Languages & Frameworks

PythonPyTorchTensorFlowHugging FaceFastAPIScikit-learnSQL

Infrastructure

GitDockerAWS SageMakerMLOpsVector DBsGradio