AI Engineer · Dubai, UAE
Maryam Maksour
AI Engineer
Agentic Systems · LLMs · RAG · Arabic NLP

Building production-grade AI systems at the intersection of language, data, and healthcare — with a background in competitive programming that shapes every problem I solve.

Education

Bachelor of Science — Information Technology
2019 – 2024
Arab Private University for Science and Technology, Hama, Syria
  • GPA 3.59 / 4.00 — ranked 2nd in cohort
  • Consistently ranked among the top 3 students in the program throughout all four years
  • Graduation Project: Integrated ChatGPT into a mobile application designed to help Information Technology / Informatics Engineering students prepare for Syria's national licensing examination

Experience

AI Engineer
Aug 2025 – Mar 2026
Evolutions
  • Built a production-grade agentic AI system: a ReAct-based AI agent using vLLM for high-throughput local inference
  • Orchestrated multi-step reasoning workflows with LangGraph state machines
  • Designed a modular tool architecture enabling autonomous task decomposition and sequential tool chaining
Instructor — Big Data & SDLC
Jan 2025 – Mar 2025
Al Dar Academy
  • Taught Big Data & Visualization and Software Development Life Cycle to undergraduate students
  • Designed an interactive curriculum focused on real-world application of technical concepts
Machine Learning Intern
Mar 2024 – Jun 2024
SMSM AI
  • Preprocessed and analyzed audio data for fine-tuning Whisper models
AI Engineer Intern
2020 – 2021
RightClick Company
  • Completed AI engineering training as the youngest engineer at the company
  • Contributed to real-world AI projects alongside senior engineers

Projects

Arabic ASR Data Research — Egyptian Dialect
Surveyed major datasets for Egyptian Arabic ASR (Common Voice, MGB-2/3, FLEURS, CALLHOME, ArZen, and others), comparing WER results across existing models to identify high-performing data sources. Contributed to validating newly collected data for the project.
Arabic NLP ASR Whisper Research
PDF Intelligent Assistant
RAG-based chatbot for PDF question-answering using advanced LLMs. Allows users to upload documents and query their content conversationally.
RAG LLM Chatbot
AI Customer Service Chatbot
OpenAI-powered automated response system built with prompt engineering for consistent, context-aware customer interactions.
OpenAI API Prompt Engineering Chatbot
Audio Classification: AST vs. HuBERT
Fine-tuned and benchmarked Audio Spectrogram Transformer and HuBERT on the Speech Commands dataset to compare model performance on audio classification.
HuggingFace Audio ML Transformers
AI Personal Trainer
Real-time workout form analysis and repetition counting using computer vision and pose estimation.
Computer Vision OpenCV Real-time
Gesture Volume Control
Hand landmark detection for system-level volume control, using computer vision to translate gestures into OS-level audio commands.
Computer Vision MediaPipe OpenCV

Research & Publication

"Comparison of Different GPT Versions and the Effectiveness of ChatGPT in the Medical Sector"
Journal of Hama University, Syria · Co-authored with Dr. Maisaa Diab 2024
  • Reviewed the evolution of GPT models from GPT-1 through GPT-4 / ChatGPT, tracing improvements in scale, alignment, and capability across versions
  • Studied the social and technical impact of ChatGPT adoption in healthcare through a survey of 93 respondents from a range of medical backgrounds
  • Findings: high perceived reliability (mean 4.19 / 5) and ease of use (mean 4.11 / 5) among respondents
  • Concluded with recommendations for developers, including enriching Arabic-language medical training data

Competitive Programming

As a Competitor
2nd
Syrian Private Universities Programming Collegiate Contest 2023 — team competition
3rd
Syrian Private Universities Programming Collegiate Contest 2024 — team competition
8th
ACPC Girls Division — Middle East Women's Programming Contest 2023 — online
As a Coach
Competitive Programming Coach — Arab Private University for Science and Technology, 2024 Coached alongside multiple co-coaches, leading 5 student teams in preparation for collegiate contests
All five teams achieved strong results — several advanced to SCPCP, one team qualified for the Arab Collegiate Programming Contest (ACPC)
Mentored students in critical thinking, problem-solving strategy, and team dynamics

Skills

Languages
Python (advanced) C++ (advanced) SQL R (basics)
ML / AI
TensorFlow Scikit-learn HuggingFace LangChain LangGraph vLLM
Data
NumPy Pandas Matplotlib Seaborn OpenCV PySpark
NLP
Transformers Whisper fine-tuning Arabic NLP RAG pipelines
APIs & Cloud
FastAPI REST API AWS OpenAI API
Databases
PostgreSQL

Volunteering

Python Tutor & Mentor
Oct 2023 – May 2025
Paper Airplanes
Mentored students online; developed structured teaching materials and communication skills.

Contact

I'm open to new opportunities, research collaborations, and interesting conversations. Reach out via any of the channels below.