Maeda F. Hanafi
Hi!
I began my career as a Research Scientist at IBM Research Almaden, where I created human-in-the-loop AI systems for Conversational AI and NLP.
Today, I work at MI DATA & AI L.L.C. where I work with AI in a very applied setting—building systems that automate product arbitrage by using machine learning to detect opportunities, optimize pricing, and streamline sourcing decisions.
I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science at New York University in 2020 under Dr. Azza Abouzied, supported by the NYU-Abu Dhabi Global Ph.D. Fellowship.
I earned my B.S. in Computer Science from Southern Connecticut State University, where I received the Academic Excellency Award.
While in graduate school, I interned at both IBM and Lockheed Martin, working on projects in information extraction, debugging tools, and data annotation.
My work has helped Lockheed Martin save $4.2M by automating a key part of their aircraft inspection workflow.
A prototype I built during my Ph.D.—allowing users to extract structured data by highlighting text—was later incorporated into IBM’s Watson Discovery product.
This work earned me IBM’s Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2022.