About Me

I'm Mohamed Rayan Barhdadi, a third-year Electrical Engineering student and researcher at Texas A&M University, where I also pursue a minor in Mathematics. My research focuses on machine learning and computer vision, particularly 3D computer vision and AI for social good, though I remain open to exploring interdisciplinary domains where ML can create meaningful impact. I have published my research at top-tier venues including ICML 2025 and have work currently under review at NeurIPS 2025, and I'm fortunate to work as a Student Researcher at the Kurban Intelligence Lab.

PhysicsNeRF: I developed PhysicsNeRF, a physics-guided framework that integrates physical constraints into neural radiance fields for 3D reconstruction from sparse views—achieving 21.4 dB PSNR using only 8 input images. This work, accepted at ICML 2025 Building Physically Plausible World Models, addresses fundamental challenges in sparse view 3D reconstruction with applications in robotics, autonomous systems, medicine, and virtual reality.

EMPATHIA: I created EMPATHIA, a multi-agent AI framework for refugee integration that employs emotional, cultural, and ethical reasoning agents to make transparent, explainable, value-aligned reasoning for integration decisions. This human-AI collaborative system, under review at NeurIPS 2025 Creative AI track, demonstrates how AI can preserve human dignity when machines participate in life-altering decisions.

I have the chance to work under the supervision and collaborate with: Dr. Hasan Kurban and Dr. Erchin Serpedin on AI for social good, Dr. Hasan Kurban and Dr. Hussein Alnuweiri on 3D neural rendering, and Dr. Halima Bensmail & Dr. Michael Aupetit at QCRI on clustering algorithms.

Mohamed Rayan Barhdadi Research Poster

Research and Life Philosophy: I'm passionate about creating work that makes a real difference
through genuine insight rather than optimizing numbers. I follow research questions wherever they lead,
as long as they advance scientific understanding and benefit society.

Publications

EMPATHIA Paper

EMPATHIA: Multi-Faceted Human-AI Collaboration for Refugee Integration

Mohamed Rayan Barhdadi, Mehmet Tuncel, Erchin Serpedin, Hasan Kurban
The 39th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
San Diego, USA 2025

Under Review
PhysicsNeRF

PhysicsNeRF: Physics-Guided 3D Reconstruction from Sparse Views

Mohamed Rayan Barhdadi, Hasan Kurban, Hussein Alnuweiri
The 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
Building Physically Plausible World Models
Vancouver, Canada 2025

Accepted
Transformer Diagnostics

Advancing Transformer Diagnostics: A Statistical Analysis of a Publicly Available DGA Database

Mohamed Rayan Barhdadi, Farheen Jaldurgam, Selma K.E. Awadallah
The 21st CIGRE International Conference (GCC-CIGRE)
Kuwait 2025

Accepted

Highlighted Experience (see CV for complete details)

Student Researcher

Mar 2025 - Present

Kurban Intelligence Lab

Advisor: Dr. Hasan Kurban

Leading research on my flagship projects PhysicsNeRF and EMPATHIA, while exploring diverse high-level ML research areas including multi-agent systems, neural rendering, and AI for social good applications and more.

Research Intern

May 2025 - Present

Artificial Intelligence Group, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI)

Advisors: Dr. Halima Bensmail, Dr. Michael Aupetit

Developing non-volume preserving flow models for mode clustering in high-dimensional data. Using ADAM optimization to find modes and avoid spurious local optima in gradient ascent clustering approaches.

Engineering/Data Science Intern

Jun 2025 - Aug 2025

SLB Qatar Headquarters

Developed TechLog plugin automating cement and corrosion evaluation reports, reducing turnaround time from 2-3 days to minutes, enabling ~$100k potential revenue.

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Feb 2024 - Dec 2024

Power System Modeling Lab, Texas A&M University

Advisor: Dr. Selma Awadallah

Created dataset with over 700 transformers and published this dataset along with its statistical analysis at CIGRE conference. Designed MySQL database for large-scale industrial monitoring data.

Hobbies outside of research ;)

Beyond research, I enjoy traveling and mountaineering, having climbed several mountains including the highest peaks of North Africa, with plans for many more adventures. I'm also passionate about running long distances, combining my love for physical challenges with exploring new places. In conclusion, I love nature and exploring.

Journal

Read my thoughts and reflections on research, life, and everything in between! And bonus stories about my adventures across the world ;) Read my blog here.

Contact

I'm always excited to discuss research collaborations and explore new opportunities in interdisciplinary machine learning. Whether you're working on theoretical foundations, real-world applications, or anywhere in between, I'd love to connect and explore how we can push the boundaries of science together!