Ahmed K. Elmagarmid

At QCRI, Elmagarmid started the Qatar Computing Research Institute-CSAIL research collaboration with MIT in 2012 with the objective of exchange of expertise between QCRI and MIT-CSAIL scientists and joint knowledge creation. Building up on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) expertise developed through this QCRI-CSAIL collaboration and various other AI projects at QCRI, he started a new center for AI within the institute. Under Elmagarmid's oversight and leadership, Qatar Center for AI (QCAI) has produced a blueprint for the "National AI Strategy for Qatar". Realizing the potential of AI and data science to impact all aspects of life and society, Elmagarmid has been promoting the transformation of higher education towards more AI/data science based education.

Elmagarmid has chaired and served on several program committees and served on several editorial boards. He was the general chair of the 2010 ACM SIGMOD [1]

Between 2006 and 2010, Elmagarmid had served as an advisor to Qatar Foundation to develop a research initiative led by Arab Expatriate Scientists, creating institutes and large-scale projects in various areas of science and technology. He serves as an advisor to the Sidra Medical and Research Center, which is one of the world's most advanced women and children's hospitals.

In 1994, he worked with SOGEI in Italy to establish standards for data quality for the Italian Treasury. He worked as an advisor to the Italian Authority for Public Administration (AIPA), an arm of the Italian Government that audits data quality processes for several government systems. He also worked for Techno Padova, an arm of the Chamber of Commerce in the Veneto region in Italy, and lectured at the University of Padova.

He taught at Pennsylvania State University before joining Purdue University in 1988. While at Purdue University, Elmagarmid founded two successful organizations with funding from the Lilly Endowment and the State of Indiana: the Indiana Center for Database Systems (ICDS) and the Cyber Center (CC). He was responsible for the development of ICDS, securing its initial funding and growing it into the largest academic database group in the United States. His second organizational initiative, The Cyber Center at Discovery Park, promotes information technology and cyber infrastructure across the whole of Purdue University. The Cyber Center is the best funded unit in Purdue's history, receiving a grant for $105M grant from National Science Foundation. He also founded and led for 3 years a third research center, the Indiana Telemedicine Incubator.

Elmagarmid is an IEEE fellow, an ACM fellow and as AAAS fellow. He received the National Science Foundation's Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1988. Ohio State University and the University of Dayton have both named him among their distinguished alumni.

Dr Ahmed K. Elmagarmid (born 1954) is a computer scientist, academic and executive. He is the founding Executive Director of Qatar Computing Research Institute, a national research institute under Hamad bin Khalifa University, a member of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Since his appointment in 2010, Elmagarmid has focused on large-scale computing challenges that address national priorities for growth and development of Qatar. The computer research community, especially the database research recognizes the important role he has played at international level by creating data-centric research institution like QCRI and building it into an internationally reputed research institute.

Ahmed K. Elmagarmid was born in Libya in 1954. He received his Bachelor of Science in computer science from the University of Dayton in 1977 and his M.S. (1981) and Ph.D. (1985) in computer science from Ohio State University.