Profiles

Aelson Sobral is a postdoctoral researcher in the Free Boundary and Interface Problems group, led by Prof. Miguel Urbano at KAUST. He earned his PhD in Mathematics from the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), Brazil, before joining KAUST in September 2024. His research explores geometric frameworks to advance the regularity theory of fully nonlinear PDEs and Free Boundary Problems that are often born in phenomenon related to superconductivity and congested traffic dynamics.

Aelson Sobral's research centers on developing geometric tools to analyze Free Boundary Problems, focusing on regularity theory for degenerate and singular partial differential equations (PDEs) and free boundary regularity. These problems are intrinsically linked to flame propagation and congested traffic dynamics.

Arved Bartuska obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Vienna. He received his Ph.D. in 2025 at RWTH Aachen University and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at KAUST.

Arved Bartuska's research interests include applied mathematics, stochastic analysis, Bayesian optimal experimental design, and uncertainty quantification.

Dr. Daria Sushnikova is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at KAUST specializing in fast algorithms for large-scale scientific computing. She earned her Ph.D. in Mathematical Modeling and Numerical Methods at the Institute of Numerical Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences, under Prof. Ivan Oseledets. Her research spans numerical linear algebra, hierarchical matrices, and high-performance computing, with contributions such as the FMM-LU solver, Compress-and-Eliminate factorization, and H2-MG algorithm. She received the Rising Stars in Computational & Data Sciences Award (2020).

David Jesus received his Ph.D. from the University of Coimbra in Portugal under the supervision of José Miguel Urbano and Edgard Pimentel in 2023. Then completed 2 years of postdoc in Bologna before joining KAUST in 2025.

Georgios Grekas is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Applied PDE Group of the Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (AMCS) program, within the CEMSE Division at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. He received his Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Crete in 2019. Part of his Ph.D. studies took place at the University of Sussex from March 2016 to March 2018. From 2019 to 2022, he held a postdoctoral position at the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Minnesota. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics (IACM) of FORTH, Greece. He joined KAUST and the Applied PDE Group in March 2024.

Majed Sofiani is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Applied PDE group of the Applied Mathematics and Computational Science program (AMCS) of CEMSE division at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. He received his Master's and PhD degrees from the department of mathematics at the University of Kansas in 2024. He joined KAUST at the AppliedPDE group in July 2024.

His research interests lie in the area of non-linear partial differential equations and dynamical systems. In particular his research focuses on the Eriksen-Leslie model for nematic liquid crystals. 

Melih Ucer is a postdoctoral researcher in the Mean-Field Games (MFG) group of Prof. Diogo Gomes at KAUST. He obtained his bachelor's degree from MIT in physics and PhD degree from Bilkent University in mathematics, where he did research on topology of algebraic varieties. Since he joined KAUST, he has been primarily working on the weak solution concepts to MFG equations. In addition, being a former IMO medalist, he is still active in training olympiad students.

Melih Ucer is primarily interested in existence and regularity of weak solutions to mean-field equations (MFE), which are PDE systems consisting of a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation and a Fokker-Planck equation.

Roberto earned a B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Padova in 2014. Then he obtained a M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics at Politecnico di Torino in 2017. Subsequently he earned a Ph.D. in pure and applied mathematics at Politencnico di Torino under a Marie Curie Horizon 2020 program in 2021.

Roberto's research involves numerical analysis of high-order algorithms for solving partial, ordinary, fractional, and integral equations. He is also interested in approximation theory in the context of numerical methods for partial differential equations. Furthermore, he also works on multiphysics models, coupled algorithms, and randomized linear algebra.

Dr. Vladimir Pimanov is a Postdoctoral Fellow at KAUST working on computational plasma physics and high-performance scientific computing under Prof. David Keyes. He earned his Ph.D. at Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Yang Liu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stochastic Numerics Research Group (STOCHNUM) of Professor Raul F. Tempone at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). His primary research interests involve uncertainty quantification, Monte Carlo methods, and finite element methods.

Abderrahmene Ben Romdhane is an Ms/PhD Student in the Stochastic Numerics Research Group (STOCHNUM) under the supervision of Professor Raúl F. Tempone at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Education Profile

• Master of Science in Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, (January 2026 - Present).
• National Engineering Diploma in Multidisciplinary Engineering, École Polytechnique de Tunisie, Tunis, Tunisia (September 2022 - September 2025).|
• Undergraduate Degree in Maths and Physics, Preparatory Institute for Engineering Studies of el Manar, Tunis, Tunisia (September 2020 - June 2022).

Early Career

• Visiting Student in Applied Mathematics, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia (October 2025 - December 2025)
• Visiting Student in Mathematics, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, (February 2025- August 2025).

Abderrahmene's research interests include Numerical Analysis, Computational Finance, Uncertainty Quantification.

AbdulRahman Mohammad Alharbi is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Mathematics at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working under the supervision of Professor Diogo Gomes. His primary area of research focuses on first-order mean-field games on bounded domains, with an emphasis on entry-exit flow constraints, contact-set conditions, and the analytical challenges posed by nonstandard boundary behavior.

AbdulRahman received his M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from KAUST in 2019, with a thesis exploring the Lp-integrability of Green’s functions for elliptic differential operators. Prior to that, he received his BA in Mathematics from Rutgers University with a minor in Physics in 2017.

In addition to his research, AbdulRahman has held teaching roles at KAUST and the Islamic University of Madinah, assisting in courses on calculus, linear algebra, and partial differential equations at both undergraduate and graduate levels. He has also participated in and presented his research at international and local conferences, including the American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS ) Conference on Dynamical Systems, the conference of the S ITE center hosted by NYU Abu Dhabi, and the CMSA conference hosted by the Saudi Association of Mathematics (SAM).

His most recent work examines the well-posedness of MFG systems with nonstandard mixed boundary conditions, variational formulations of MFGs, the local regularity of weak solutions, and the monotone operator structure underlying such systems. These topics lie at the interface of partial differential equations, variational analysis, and optimal control.

First-order mean-field games, linear and quasi-linear elliptic equations, the transport equation, and free boundary problems.  

Ahmed Abdali graduated from the University of Bahrain with a BSc in Mathematics in 2022.

Nonlinear PDEs and applications.

Ms. Aseel AlNajjar is a Ph.D candidate in the AppliedPDE group of the Applied Mathematics and Computational Science program (AMCS) of CEMSE division at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. She graduated from Taibah University in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and received a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from KAUST in 2021. During 2018 Ms. AlNajjar was a summer research intern in the AppliedPDE group. 

• King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) December 2021 - Present

PhD in Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, Advisor: Peter Richtarik 

• King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) August 2020 - December 2021

MS in Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
Advisor: Peter Richtarik 

• Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) September 2014 - July 2019

BS in Applied Mathematics and Physics Dolgoprudny, Russia, Advisor: Boris Polyak 
Thesis: Averaged Heavy Ball Method

Stochastic Optimization, Distributed Optimization, Federated Learning, Machine Learning

Hanan Albarqi obtained a master’s degree in Pure Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 2022 and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from King Khalid University in 2017.

Analysis and applied PDEs.

Hikmatullo Ismatov earned a Bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Lomonosov Moscow State University (2017-2021). He joined KAUST as an MS/PhD student in 2023. Before starting his graduate studies, Hikmatullo completed an internship at KAUST in the same year.

Hikmatullo Ismatov's research centers on nonlinear PDEs, particularly the Infinity-Laplace equation. This class of equations has significant applications in understanding various optimization problems and phenomena, such as tug-of-war games and image processing. His work aims to contribute to the theory and applications of nonlinear PDEs, particularly through rigorous mathematical analysis and computational approaches.

Juan Pablo Muñoz Díaz is a Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Prof. Jesper Tegnér (KAUST), co-supervised by Dr. Narsis Kiani (karolinska institutet). His research merges machine learning and bifurcation theory to uncover hidden variables in nonlinear biological systems. He has conducted collaborative research at the University of Cambridge and presented at leading international conferences, including the International Conference on Systems Biology and the SIAM Conference on Dynamical Systems.

Juan Pablo is interested in learning Generative Causal Models from Sparse Temporal Observations during Cellular Reprogramming. His research focuses on identifying efficient algorithms for generation of ensembles of dynamical models and using supervised deep learning algorithms for pattern discovery in large-scale simulation data-sets. These steps aiming to and motivated both by our quest of asking fundamental questions of relevance to human nature and discovery of transformative intelligent technologies inspired from nature.