PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Bernard Ghanem

Bernard Ghanem is a computer vision researcher whose work connects video understanding with generative AI. At the American University of Beirut, he earned a B.E. in Computer and Communications Engineering in 2005; he completed an M.S. in 2008 and a Ph.D. in 2010 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he worked in a computer vision lab. ActivityNet gave researchers a large-scale benchmark for human activity understanding, and his team developed an algorithm for UAV racing. In 2020, he received the Shoman Award for Machine Learning and Big Data, and in 2025 he received the Research Excellence Award in Future Economies. As of October 2026, he is a KAUST professor and Interim Mission Director, AI, chairs its GenAI Center, and co-chairs its Institutional AI Adoption Strategy Working Group.

Works
490
Citations
28,239
h-index
71

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2005–2010

    Engineering degrees and research

    He earns a B.E. in Computer and Communications Engineering at the American University of Beirut in 2005. He completes an M.S. in 2008 and a Ph.D. in 2010 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At Illinois, he serves as a graduate research assistant in the Computer Vision and Robotics Lab at the Beckman Institute.

  2. 2010–2012

    Postdoc and KAUST move

    After a postdoctoral fellowship at UIUC in 2010, he becomes a senior research scientist at the Advanced Digital Sciences Center (ADSC) of Illinois in Singapore in 2011. In 2012, he joins KAUST as a research scientist.

  3. 2015–2018

    The ActivityNet benchmark

    In 2015, he coauthors ActivityNet, a large-scale benchmark for human activity understanding with 203 activity categories. In 2018, he coauthors the ActivityNet challenge summary, which describes six tasks for visual understanding of user-generated videos.

  4. 2018

    Teaching UAVs to race

    At KAUST, his team develops an algorithm that teaches UAVs to race. A machine learning-trained UAV outperforms novice and intermediate human pilots in simulation.

  5. 2020

    The Shoman research award

    In 2020, Ghanem receives the Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers for Machine Learning and Big Data.

  6. September 2024

    Chairing KAUST's GenAI center

    In September 2024, KAUST launches its Center of Excellence for Generative AI with Ghanem as chair and Jürgen Schmidhuber as co-chair. The center sets out to develop general-purpose generative AI models and training practices for the Kingdom's research priorities.

  7. 2025

    A Future Economies award

    In 2025, Ghanem receives the Research Excellence Award in Future Economies for AI research in computer vision and applications to human behavior analysis.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor and GenAI chair

    As of October 2026, he is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and Interim Mission Director, AI, at KAUST, and chairs its Center of Excellence for Generative AI. He co-chairs KAUST's Institutional AI Adoption Strategy Working Group.

Career

  1. Since 2012King Abdullah University of Science and TechnologyResearch Scientist, Chair
  2. 2012–2015Advanced Digital Sciences Center
  3. 2010–2012University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignPostdoctoral Fellow, Senior Research Scientist
  4. 2005–2010Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and TechnologyGraduate Research Assistant

Education

  1. 2010University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignPh.D.
  2. 2008University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignM.S.
  3. 2005American University of BeirutB.E.

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  2. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  3. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Bernard Ghanem - Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering - King Abdullah University of Science and Technology kaust.edu.sa. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. ActivityNet: A Large-Scale Video Benchmark for Human Activity Understanding openaccess.thecvf.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. The ActivityNet Large-Scale Activity Recognition Challenge 2018 Summary arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Teaching algorithms to see kaust.edu.sa. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Professor Ghanem wins 2020 Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers cemse.kaust.edu.sa. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. KAUST Center of Excellence for Generative AI kaust.edu.sa. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. KAUST faculty honored with RDIA Excellence Awards kaust.edu.sa. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Launch of the KAUST Institutional AI Adoption Strategy Working Group thelens.kaust.edu.sa. Checked 20 October 2026.