Reports indicate that Mohamed Salah will leave Liverpool at the end of the season. Details regarding his next club are not specified in the provided content. Salah shared a message for fans, though the content of the message is not detailed here. Why it matters: Salah's departure would be a major shift in the landscape of European football, impacting Liverpool's performance and potentially influencing investment in football within the Middle East if he joins a team in the region.
Ahmed Al Saleh, a 2017 KAUST material science and engineering graduate, is now a business development manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He is the first Saudi to work for the company, representing them in Saudi Arabia from their KAUST campus office. Al Saleh advises KAUST students to experiment and develop their social skills, embracing failure as part of the learning process. Why it matters: This highlights KAUST's role in developing local talent for key science and technology sectors in Saudi Arabia.
KAUST held its eighth Academic Convocation, featuring speakers including Ph.D. student Samah Mohamed and professor Jeff Shamma. Mohamed encouraged students to focus on developing skills and pursuing their passions at KAUST. Shamma noted KAUST's reputation for research excellence despite its young age. Why it matters: The event highlights KAUST's continued focus on graduate education and research impact within Saudi Arabia.
KAUST Professor Mohamed Eddaoudi is researching MOFs (metal-organic frameworks). MOFs have applications for clean energy. Why it matters: This research contributes to KAUST's and Saudi Arabia's broader clean energy and sustainability initiatives.
KAUST Ph.D. student Mohammed Aljahdali received the Best Paper award at the International Conference on Federated Learning Technologies and Applications (FLTA) 2025 for his research on federated learning. His paper, "Flashback: Understanding and Mitigating Forgetting in Federated Learning," introduces an algorithm to help AI systems retain knowledge across diverse datasets while preserving privacy. Aljahdali's research, supervised by Professor Marco Canini, focuses on training machine learning models directly on user devices. Why it matters: This award recognizes the growing talent and impactful research emerging from Saudi universities in the field of privacy-preserving AI.
KAUST alumna Samah Mohamed (Ph.D. '18, chemical engineering) specialized in combustion research at the Clean Combustion Research Center. She chose KAUST for its resources and expert faculty in engineering thermodynamics and chemical reactions. Mohamed aims to continue in academia and scientific research, as well as return to teaching. Why it matters: KAUST's focus on attracting and developing regional talent in strategically important fields like clean combustion could help address environmental challenges in Saudi Arabia and the broader Middle East.
Professor Iain McCulloch from KAUST has won the Royal Society of Chemistry's Interdisciplinary Prize. McCulloch was recognized for his work in designing and applying functional materials in optics, electronics, and energy. His research focuses on creating new organic materials for flexible solar cells and other applications. Why it matters: This award highlights KAUST's increasing role as a hub for innovative materials science research with global impact.