AUS engineering student receives competitive Tau Beta Pi Scholarship

When Ahmad Atef Saad talks about engineering, he often returns to one question: can an idea work reliably after it leaves the lab? That question has guided much of his work as a computer engineering student at American University of Sharjah (AUS), from AI research to embedded hardware projects. It has now helped earn him a Tau Beta Pi Scholarship, a competitive award presented by Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society, to outstanding engineering students in their senior year.

Saad, who is expected to graduate in December 2026, received the US $1,000 partial scholarship for his final semester of full-time undergraduate study.

“This scholarship is a proud moment for me because it recognizes the path I have been building at AUS,” said Saad. “My interest has always been in engineering that connects strong technical ideas with systems that can actually perform in practical settings.”

Established in 1998, the Tau Beta Pi Scholarship supports initiated members of Tau Beta Pi who are continuing as full-time undergraduate engineering students into their senior year. The scholarship is awarded through a competitive merit-based process that considers academic achievement, extracurricular involvement and the applicant’s potential to contribute to the engineering profession.

For Saad, the recognition reflects a record built across academics, research, industry experience and student leadership. A senior computer engineering student with a consistently exceptional academic record, he has earned six Dean’s List distinctions and three Chancellor’s List distinctions at AUS to date.

Saad recently completed an internship as an AI and machine learning engineer at Samsung Gulf Electronics, where he worked on AI application development, the preparation and training of machine learning models and the optimization of those models for specialized AI hardware.

His research experience has followed a similar applied direction. Working with AUS faculty and undergraduate students, he contributed to projects that bring together AI, hardware design and wireless communication. One project focused on an emotion recognition system that analyzes sound patterns in the Arabic language to help identify emotional cues using deep learning models. As part of a research group supported by the Undergraduate Research Grant at AUS, he designed and fabricated a custom-printed circuit board for an energy-harvesting sensor node using LoRaWAN, a low-power wireless technology that allows Internet of Things devices to send data over long distances. His work covered the hardware design process, from circuit design to measuring how efficiently the device uses power.

“Working on both AI models and hardware taught me to think about the whole system,” said Saad. “It is not enough for a model to perform well in testing. It also has to be efficient, reliable and suitable for the environment where it will be used.”

 Saad’s leadership record reflects a strong connection to the AUS community. Saad is an inductee and President of Tau Beta Pi UAE Alpha at AUS. He is currently an AI Hub Assistant, where he led the redesign of the university’s AI website. The platform empowers faculty, staff and students by providing vetted AI tools, guides and resources.

“Leadership has shaped the way I understand engineering,” said Saad. “Through Tau Beta Pi, Student Residential Life Department and the AI Hub, I have learned that technical knowledge becomes stronger when it is connected to service, collaboration and responsibility.”

Looking ahead, Saad plans to pursue a master’s degree and a PhD before building his career as an AI engineer. His long-term goal is to develop advanced AI systems that can move from research into dependable practical applications, particularly where software intelligence and hardware design meet.

“I want to keep working at the intersection of AI and hardware,” said Saad. “My goal is to help turn advanced AI research into technology that is efficient, dependable and ready for real use.”

To explore the academic associations and student chapters of professional organizations within the College of Engineering, visit www.aus.edu/cen/community/student#student-clubs-and-organizations.