I am an Assistant Professor at the College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University. My research lies at the intersection of Computational Social Science, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Responsible AI, where I work on computational methods to evaluate the social and normative dimensions of language towards responsible models.
My research centers on two interconnected pillars, mainly I study how language can be evaluated and developed with greater awareness of social meaning, cultural variation, and human values.
A central goal of this work is to move beyond conventional benchmark evaluation toward assessing the implicit social meanings, contextual validity, and human-centered dimensions that underpin responsible and socially aligned models.
Rececent studies: [Incongruent Positivity] [EMBRACE:Aligning Implicit Conversations with Social Norms] [Covert Bias: stress testing Severity of Social Views’ Unalignment] [Persuasion Modes in Countering Hate]
I examine how sociocultural meanings and social positoning vary across languages
Rececent studies: [Same Lesson, Different Story], [Wisdom in Unity]
To help clarify research fit: I am not interested in monolingual or polyglossia/dialect-focused work, including Arabic NLP, Arabic HCI, gaming, religious studies, network science, healthcare or biology, educational applications, political analysis, privacy applications, policy, sustainability, cybersecurity, or startup-oriented projects.
Please see my FAQ page and recent research for a clearer view of my current research direction.
I received my Ph.D. in August 2021 from the University of Edinburgh, where I was affiliated with the Institute for Language, Cognition and Communication at the School of Informatics, and was a member of the SMASH research group.
My doctoral work addressed a fundamental challenge in stance detection: how to understand stance in complex, real-world social media environments. The thesis developed computational models that examine the interaction between language, sentiment, and social dynamics, while also motivating more responsible and context-aware NLP evaluation frameworks.
My work has been covered in international media for its relevance to social influence and trustworthy AI. Alongside my main research, I also contributed to projects on hybrid language–behavior modeling for suicide risk assessment and rumor veracity detection through conversational modeling.
Before my Ph.D., I earned both my BSc and MSc in Computer and Information Sciences from King Saud University. My master’s thesis focused on query paraphrasing for information retrieval, and I also worked as a research assistant on readability identification.
📚 My personal interests include learning different languages and reading. Recommend me a book for my reading list here.