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Rami Mahdi

Rami Mahdi

Dr. Rami Mahdi a Data Scientist at Facebook Administration and one of the Arab American University first graduates from Gaza Strip.

Since the end of 2015, he began working as a data scientist at Facebook. There he worked with a group of engineers and researchers who worked to increase the revenue from advertising via Facebook.

Mahdi graduated from the Arab American University with a degree in Computer Science with honors in 2004 (President’s honor list).

After graduating he work directly with Jawwal Company for one year as a developer of electronic systems at the company.

In 2005, Rami joined Louisville University in Kentucky master’s program and worked as lecturer at the university. His extremely significance master thesis entitled "Applying mechanic learning methods in multimedia: image database indexing and semi-supervised learning approaches to enhance image search quality". He graduated with specialization in Engineering and Computer Science in 2007 with magna cum laude and he was rewarded with (Arthur M. Reel academic excellence) scholarship to peruse his PhD studies.

He focused his PhD studies in Artificial Neural Networks and their applications in genetic research, Mahdi graduated in 2010 with Honors. During his five years at Louisville University he taught many students on several topics such as programming languages and OO Design.

In 2010 he became Post-Doctorate researcher in Biology Arithmetic at New York’s Cornell Medical College. He worked there with researchers in the field of medicine to develop new statistical learning methods for the analysis of gene expression data to understand the genetic interactions in human lung tissue, which contributes to understand disease progression and thus the development of suitable treatment.

During that time he got the opportunity to attend several significant conferences and publish lots of researches in scientific journals.

2012-2015 he worked for an American company in the city of San Diageo as a scientist for learning machines. One of the company’s highest objectives was to develop methods and appropriate solutions to detect fraud and risk assessment in financial transactions and a large number of banks have benefited from the solutions, prestigious ones in particular around the world.

 

Mr. Mahdi Said:

My story might sound like a big success, but it is dwarfed by the success of AAU itself.

He added:

In fact, my success and AAU success have been intertwined all along and both were destined to defeat the odds. I came from Gaza to join a new born university right immediately with the start of the Intifada in 2000. Almost everything around us was going in the wrong direction. AAU started as a small university and as a first generation student in an Intefada environment that was challenging and worrisome to me and all other students. Nonetheless, AAU was like a small family in that time. The doors of the president and the professors of the university were always open to students. In fact, the president of AAU back then, Dr Waleed Deep advised me on how to negotiate my first job offer, and the dean of the IT department, Dr Farooq Mosa, played a key role in helping me get admission and assistantship in a US university. Also, in spite of the surrounding difficulties AAU never compromised on the quality of the education. I am personally humbled by how many of those who graduated with me from AAU have reached far and beyond in pursuing higher education and professional careers. I have not been lucky to visit AAU since 2004 because of the occupation difficulties and being from GAZA, but I am truly amazed of how far AAU has become and I am proud to have been there when it all started.

 

Proud of you.