Search Engine Research Wins Best Project at Carnegie Mellon Symposium

Press release

Published May 2nd, 2019 - 07:59 GMT

During the event

Highlights

A graduating senior from the Computer Science Program won the top award at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar’s (CMU-Q) Meeting of the Minds research symposium.

A graduating senior from the Computer Science Program won the top award at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar’s (CMU-Q) Meeting of the Minds research symposium. Omar Khattab created a novel framework that makes it easier and more efficient for information retrieval experts to develop and deploy scalable search engines. Large-scale information retrieval is central to many applications like web and e-commerce searches.

Khattab, who also won an award from Qatar National Research Fund, worked with his advisor, Mohammad Hammoud, assistant teaching professor of computer science, on the project.

Second place went to Beom Jin Jayden Park and Hawra Al-Saygh for their project, “Effect of aspartame on kinetics of calf intestinal alkaline phosphatase,” and third place went to Youssef Kanbour for “Re-expression of BRCA1 using targeted DNA demethylation in breast cancer cells.”

Al-Dana Al-Mohannadi won the Best Poster Design award for her project, “Educating girls in Qatar: Toward enhancing technology use in public schools.”

There were more than two dozen in the undergraduate poster category. Qatar National Research Fund presented three awards to recognize exceptional projects. The Planning and Statistics Authority presented five awards to projects that have particular relevance to Qatar. A full list of the Meeting of the Minds 2019 award winners is available on www.qatar.cmu.edu.

This was the 13th annual Meeting of the Minds at CMU-Q, an undergraduate research symposium that originated at the Carnegie Mellon University main campus in 1995.

Background Information

Carnegie Mellon University Qatar

For more than a century, Carnegie Mellon University has challenged the curious and passionate to imagine and deliver work that matters. A private, top-ranked and global university, Carnegie Mellon sets its own course with programs that inspire creativity and collaboration.

In 2004, Carnegie Mellon and Qatar Foundation began a partnership to deliver select programs that will contribute to the long-term development of Qatar. Today, Carnegie Mellon Qatar offers undergraduate programs in biological sciences, business administration, computational biology, computer science, and information systems. Nearly 400 students from 38 countries call Carnegie Mellon Qatar home.