Leadership
Our Founding
Mentors.
Industry researchers from the world's leading AI labs, guiding Pakistan's next generation of talent. Not advisors — hands-on co-builders who review code, challenge assumptions, and shape research direction.
Sean Kalbaugh
San Francisco, USA
Teleoperator — Meta · ex-OpenAI
Research and robotics background spanning Meta, OpenAI, Physical Intelligence, and The Bot Company. Brings hands-on AI systems experience to guide Afrium's research tracks.
Prof. Chaoning Zhang
Sichuan, China
Full Professor of CS @ UESTC · World's Top 2% Scientist
Directs an AI research lab at UESTC working on LLMs, Computer Vision, and Vision-Language Models. ~100 papers in top venues (CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, ICLR). 5600+ citations, H-index 38. Creator of MobileSAM.
Education
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering (AI & ML) — KAIST
M.S. Electrical Engineering — Harbin Institute of Technology
Motasem A. Karasneh
Amman, Jordan
AI & Data Engineer · Cognitive Services Specialist
8+ years in Telecom and IT. Specializing in Azure AI Services, OpenAI integration, and cognitive services. Passionate about simplifying tech, mentorship, and knowledge sharing across the AI community.
Education
M.S. Data Science — Princess Sumaya University for Technology
B.S. Telecommunications Engineering — Yarmouk University
Ahsan Fiaz
Islamabad, Pakistan
Lecturer & AI/Deep Learning Engineer — IST
AI and Deep Learning Engineer specializing in healthcare AI, medical image analysis, and mobile health solutions. Published at ICIDA 2025 (Springer). Co-PI on funded AI-enabled dermoscopic device project. IEEE FIT 2025 reviewer.
Education
M.S. Computer Science — COMSATS University Islamabad
B.S. Computer Science — Arid Agriculture University
Dr. Abdul Kabir Khan
Islamabad, Pakistan
Assistant Professor of Physics — Institute of Space Technology
Researcher specializing in theoretical nuclear astrophysics — bridging nuclear physics with astrophysical applications. Expertise in Nuclear Energy Density Functional theory, radiative capture reactions, nucleosynthesis processes, and stellar evolution.
Education
Ph.D. Theoretical & Mathematical Physics — GIK Institute
M.S. Theoretical Nuclear Physics — GIK Institute
More Founding Mentors — Announcing Soon
We are in active discussions with researchers from ETH Zurich, EPFL, IBM Research, and OpenAI. Their profiles will be added here as mentorship agreements are confirmed.
Our Mentors Are Researchers From