Currently @ KAUST

Ali Habibullah

Research Engineer · AI

I work on AI research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and serve as academic lead for the KAUST Academy AI Specialization Program — a national initiative that has received over 15,000 applications a year.

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01 / About

I'm a Research Engineer at KAUST focused on generative AI and vision-language models. My current research explores training-free frameworks for zero-shot reasoning, with recent work on list-wise video retrieval published as Vote-in-Context (ViC).

Alongside research, I serve as academic lead for the KAUST Academy AI Specialization Program, which has received over 15,000 applications a year and delivered training across six major Saudi universities. My background spans deep learning research, full-stack engineering, and large-scale technical teaching.

4.98/5
Cumulative GPA
1,000+
Students Taught
6
Saudi Universities

02 / Technical Skills

Languages
Python SQL C#
AI & Machine Learning
PyTorch Scikit-learn Pandas NumPy Matplotlib
Web & Frameworks
Django Laravel Angular
Cloud, Data & Tools
Azure Power BI Git
Research Focus
Vision-Language Models Generative AI Computer Vision NLP Reinforcement Learning
Strategic
Technical Training KPI Development Executive Reporting Analytics Automation

03 / Publications & Projects

Recent Publication November 2025

Vote-in-Context: Turning VLMs into Zero-Shot Rank Fusers

Mohamed Eltahir, Ali Habibullah, Lama Ayash, Tanveer Hussain, Naeemullah Khan

87.1% Recall@1 — MSR-VTT
SOTA Zero-Shot Retrieval
Training-Free VLM Framework

We introduce Vote-in-Context (ViC), a training-free framework that reframes list-wise reranking and multi-modal rank fusion as a zero-shot reasoning task for Vision-Language Models. Paired with our S-Grid serialization for list-wise video reasoning, ViC achieves state-of-the-art zero-shot retrieval performance on MSR-VTT and VATEX.

Read Paper Source Code
Education Program 2024 — 2026 Cohorts

KAUST Academy — AI Specialization Program

Academic Lead · KAUST Academy

30,000+ Total Applications
1,000+ Students Trained
6 Partner Universities

Co-designed and delivered an intensive 8-week AI specialization program at KAUST, covering foundational and advanced topics across Computer Vision, Generative AI, Reinforcement Learning, and Natural Language Processing. The program is delivered in partnership with all major Saudi universities, with top students selected for global summer internships at leading research institutions.

KAUST KAU UJ UQU PNU KFUPM TU UPM QU
Course Materials

04 / Experience & Education

November 2023 — Present

Research Engineer

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) · Thuwal, KSA

  • Academic lead for the KAUST Academy AI Specialization Program; 30,000+ applications across the 2025 and 2026 batches, with top students placed in global summer internships.
  • Instructed 1,000+ students in machine learning and deep learning fundamentals using PyTorch, across six Saudi universities (KAUST, KAU, UJ, UQU, PNU, KFUPM).
  • Supervised 300+ students through an intensive summer training program in Computer Vision, Generative AI, Reinforcement Learning, and NLP.
  • Teaching Assistant for Deep Generative Modeling, NLP Applications, and Master's Directed Research.
June 2023 — June 2024

Software Developer

Lyrae Digital · Jeddah, KSA

  • Product managed GA_Universe, a local low-code / no-code platform.
  • Oversaw the JIRA ticketing system and conducted Quality Assurance across submissions.
  • Managed the open-source Docusaurus documentation website.
Education
June 2023 — August 2023

AI Summer School

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

  • Selected from over 10,000 applicants for a fully-sponsored intensive program in Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, and Reinforcement Learning.
June 2022 — October 2022

Intern

KAU HPC Center · Jeddah, KSA

  • Led development of the AZIZ account request feature, including email alerts, attachment processing, and request history tracking.
  • Built user interfaces and backend logic with Laravel, Tailwind CSS, and React.
  • Managed a team of 8 fellow interns and maintained version control on GitHub.
Education
February 2019 — February 2023

B.Sc. in Computer Science

King Abdulaziz University · Jeddah, KSA

  • Graduated with a cumulative GPA of 4.98 / 5.00.

05 / Get in Touch

I'm currently open to research collaborations and engineering opportunities. Feel free to reach out via email or any of the channels below.

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