Meeting of the Minds 2019 showcases projects in the areas of science, tech, business and the arts

DOHA, QATAR: 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.

Judges for Meeting of the Minds are part of the wider scientific and academic community. This year, the judges represented the following organizations: Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, National Center for Cancer Care and Research at Hamad Medical Corporation, Qatar Computing Research Institute, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, Qatar National Research Fund, Qatar Planning and Statistics Authority, Sidra Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar.

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.

Full list of winners

Best Project

1. Omar Khattab, IRg: A distributed graph-based framework for information retrieval
   Advisor: Mohammad Hammoud
2. Beom Jin Jayden Park and Hawra Al-Saygh,Effect of aspartame on kinetics of calf intestinal alkaline phosphatase
   Advisor: Annette Vincent
3. Youssef Kanbour, Re-expression of BRCA1 using targeted DNA demethylation in breast cancer cells
   Advisor: Ihab Younis

Best Poster Design

• Al-Dana Al-Mohannadi, Educating girls in Qatar: Toward enhancing technology use in public schools
  Advisor: Susan Hagan

Qatar National Research Fund awards

• Albandari Al-Khater, Modulating PARP1 splicing in breast cancer as potential therapeutic approach
  Advisor: Ihab Younis
• Omar Khattab, IRg: A distributed graph-based framework for information retrieval
  Advisor: Mohammad Hammoud
• Anis Charfi, Syed Mehdi and Esraa Mohamad, ARAP – Author profiling and its application for market segmentation

Planning and Statistics Authority awards

• Aisha Fakhroo, Boshra Al-Sulaiti and Reem Elasad, PTEN gene encodes a ncRNA that acts as a potent tumor suppressor in breast cancer
  Advisor: Ihab Younis
• Kawthar Al-Sadat, Molecular tools for microbial viability assessment in environmental samples: Case study of ballast water
  Advisors: Basem Shomar, Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute and Annette Vincent
• Al-Dana Al-Mohannadi, Educating girls in Qatar: Toward enhancing technology use in public schools
  Advisor: Susan Hagan
• Faiq Defiandry, What does the eye say?
  Advisor: Jennifer Bruder
• Anis Charfi, Esraa Mohamad and Syed Mehdi, Deception detection in Arabic text