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Malek Smaoui

Instructional Associate Professor, Computer Science

Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division
Email icon malek.smaoui@kaust.edu.sa

The classroom is an experience that could as well be dreary and tedious for the students. It’s up to the instructor to make the acquisition of knowledge and skills a more delightful and memorable experience by implementing the format most suitable to the topic and the audience.

Program Affiliations

Biography

Malek Smaoui received her M.Sc. in 2009 and Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2011 from the University of Houston (UH), U.S. She previously earned a B.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from École Polytechnique de Tunisie, Tunisia, in 2006.

Her teaching career began during her Ph.D. years, where she served as a teaching assistant across various Computer Science courses at the University of Houston. In parallel, she was a key contributor to the development and maintenance of the Virtual Prairie BOINC project. Smaoui joined KAUST in 2012 and has since been teaching fundamental Computer Science subjects within the Computer Science Program, primarily introducing students from other disciplines to computing at various levels of expertise.

Research Interests

Initially, Smaoui's research focused on nature-inspired optimization algorithms, volunteer computing and high-performance computing.

Her current primary focus is Computer Science education methods and technologies. Malek strives to enhance her students' computer science learning experiences at a graduate level, via the implementation of modern approaches and the use of recent technology innovations in the area. She mainly aims at making learning computing accessible to students from all backgrounds.
Keyword tag icon
Parallel and Distributed Computing nature-inspired algorithms Computer science education

Education Profile

  • Ph.D., University of Houston, 2011

  • M.Sc., University of Houston, 2009

  • B.E., Tunisia Polytechnic School, 2006

Publications

  • S. Feki, M. Smaoui, Tuning OpenACC Loops Execution, Parallel Programming with OpenACC (edited by Rob Farber), edition 1, pages 111-124, Morgan Kaufmann, 2016, ISBN 9780124103979.

  • M. Smaoui, M. Garbey, Improving volunteer computing scheduling for evolutionary algorithms, Future Generation Computer Systems, volume 29, issue 1, pages 1-14, 2013.

  • C. Mony, M. Garbey, M. Smaoui, and M. L. Benot. Large Scale Parameter Study of an Individual Based Model of Clonal Plant with Volunteer Computing, Ecological Modelling, volume 222, pages 935-946, 2011.

  • M. Smaoui, H. V. Nguyen, and M. Garbey. Parallel Genetic Algorithm Implementation for BOINC, Parallel Computing: From Multicores and GPU's to Petascale, 2010, volume 19, pages 212-219, (Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel Computing, ParCo 2009).M. Smaoui, M. Garbey

  • M. Smaoui, M. Garbey and C. Mony. Virtual Prairie: Going Green with Volunteer Computing, Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Asia-Pacic Services Computing Conference (IEEE APSCC 2008), December 9-12, Yilan, Taiwan.