Muhammad Saad

Muhammad Saad

M.A.Sc. Student, University of Ottawa

🧐 About Saad

Hi there! Saad is a Master’s (M.A.Sc.) student in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Applied AI) at the University of Ottawa, Canada, working under the supervision of Prof. Abdulmotaleb El Saddik. His thesis, OmniTutor, explores a USD-based architecture for embodied conversational agents in simulated learning environments. Previously, Saad worked as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Metaverse Center, MBZUAI, and as a Software Engineer - AI at EPAM Systems (client: HUMAIN), Dubai.

Research Interests: Saad is interested in building AI systems that perceive, reason, and interact naturally with people and their environments. Specifically:

  • Medical Image Analysis: AI methods for accurate diagnosis and clinically meaningful image analysis
  • Human Action Recognition: detecting and classifying human activities for surveillance, sports, and healthcare
  • Immersive Human-Computer Interaction: AI-driven interaction techniques for AR/VR/XR and metaverse environments
  • Agentic AI: agents that can perceive, reason, plan, and autonomously interact with operating systems and applications

πŸ€” Saad is currently working on OmniTutor β€” a USD-based architecture for embodied conversational agents β€” and on Agentic Operating Systems for AI PCs at Dell Technologies. Please feel free to contact Saad at msaad104 at uottawa dot ca for collaboration.

MBZUAI

πŸ”₯ News

  • 2026.05: Started a Co-op internship at Dell Technologies, Ottawa, working on Agentic Operating Systems for AI PCs.
  • 2026: One paper accepted at the ACM CHI 2026 Workshop on Shaping Future Human Connection, Barcelona, Spain!
  • 2026: NewsTwin accepted in IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine!
  • 2025.09: πŸŽ‰ Started the M.A.Sc. program in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Ottawa!
  • 2025.09: Awarded the University of Ottawa Graduate Studies Scholarship.
  • 2025.09: Joined EPAM Systems (client: HUMAIN), Dubai, as a Software Engineer - AI.
  • 2025: CP-Diffusion accepted at ACM TOMM!
  • 2025: All Languages Matter accepted at CVPR 2025!
  • 2024: Action Knowledge Graph paper presented at IEEE ICCE 2024, Las Vegas, USA!
  • 2023.01: Joined the Metaverse Center, MBZUAI, Abu Dhabi, as a Graduate Research Assistant.

πŸ“ Selected Publications

(* indicates equal contribution; # indicates corresponding authorship.)

CHI-W 2026 Multimodal Interaction through Embodied Agents: An Intelligent Assistant for Immersive Virtual Environments
Muhammad Saad, Mahdi Saeed, Faouzi Laamarti, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik. (ACM CHI 2026 Workshop, Barcelona, Spain)

  • TLDR;

    We present an intelligent embodied agent assistant that enables natural multimodal interaction within immersive virtual environments.

IEEE CEM 2026 NewsTwin: An Embodied Multi-Agent Digital Twin for Personalized News Consumption
Z. Wang, Muhammad Saad, Mahdi Saeed, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik. (IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, 2026)

  • TLDR;

    We introduce an embodied multi-agent digital twin that personalizes how users consume and interact with news content.

ACM TOMM CP-Diffusion: Conditional Prompt-Based Diffusion Models for Video Generation
Mahdi Saeed, Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Saad, Nasir Rahim, Wail Gueaieb, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik. (ACM TOMM, 2025)

  • TLDR;

    We propose conditional prompt-based diffusion models for controllable and high-quality video generation.

CVPR 2025 All Languages Matter: Evaluating LMMs on Culturally Diverse 100 Languages
A. Vayani, D. Dissanayake, H. Watawana, N. Ahsan, et al. (incl. Muhammad Saad), F. Khan. (CVPR 2025)

  • TLDR;

    A large-scale benchmark evaluating large multimodal models across 100 culturally diverse languages.

ICCE 2024 Action Knowledge Graph for Violence Detection Using Audiovisual Features
Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Saad, Abbas Khan, Wail Gueaieb, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, Giulia De Masi, Fakhri Karray. (IEEE ICCE 2024, Las Vegas, USA)

  • TLDR;

    We leverage action knowledge graphs over audiovisual features to improve violence detection in videos.

ISC2 2023 Combating Counterfeit Products in Smart Cities with Digital Twin Technology
Muhammad Saad, Muhammad Khan, Mahdi Saeed, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, Wail Gueaieb. (IEEE ISC2 2023, Bucharest, Romania)

  • TLDR;

    We use digital twin technology to detect and combat counterfeit products in smart city supply chains.

ISC2 2023 Gaming-Based Education System for Children on Road Safety in Metaverse Towards Smart Cities
Mahdi Saeed, Abbas Khan, Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Saad, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, Wail Gueaieb. (IEEE ISC2 2023, Bucharest, Romania)

  • TLDR;

    A metaverse-based gaming system that teaches road safety to children in smart city environments.

SITIS 2022 BreastUS: Vision Transformer for Breast Cancer Classification Using Breast Ultrasound Images
Muhammad Saad, M. Ullah, H. Afridi, F. A. Cheikh, M. Sajjad. (SITIS 2022, Dijon, France)

  • TLDR;

    We introduce a vision transformer model for breast cancer classification from ultrasound images.

πŸŽ– Honors and Awards

  • 2025.09 Awarded the University of Ottawa Graduate Studies Scholarship for graduate studies
  • 2022 Awarded a Data Science certificate by the Government of Pakistan (NAVTTC)
  • 2020 Award of appreciation for securing 1st position in the Youth Talent Expo

πŸ“– Educations

  • πŸŽ“ 2025.09 - Present, M.A.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Applied AI), University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.
  • πŸŽ“ 2017.08 - 2021.09, B.Sc. in Software Engineering, Islamia College Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.

πŸ’¬ Services

  • Teaching Assistant:
    • Computer Architecture course, University of Ottawa.
    • Python programming course, DIP Lab, Islamia College Peshawar.
  • Mentorship:
    • Mentor and project evaluator for final-year students’ projects at the DIP Lab, Islamia College Peshawar.
  • Community:
    • Attended the NVIDIA Omniverse virtual meeting on its academic and research applications.

πŸ’» Experiences

  • 2026.05 - 2026.09, Dell Technologies, Co-op Intern, Ottawa, Canada.
  • 2025.09 - 2026.02, EPAM Systems (Client: HUMAIN), Software Engineer - AI, Dubai, UAE.
  • 2023.01 - 2025.08, Metaverse Center, MBZUAI, Graduate Research Assistant, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
  • 2020.12 - 2022, DIP Lab, Islamia College Peshawar, Undergraduate Research Assistant, Peshawar, Pakistan.

πŸŽ™ Miscellaneous

Sports

Saad loves sports and always makes time for cricket. He stays active with regular gym workouts.