AUK Professor Iyad Abu Doush Completes Research at Dartmouth College

Dr. Iyad Abu Doush, Professor of Computer Science and Information Systems at the American University of Kuwait (AUK) recently returned after spending the summer completing research as a faculty fellow at Dartmouth College.

During his time at Dartmouth, Dr. Abu Doush worked closely with Dr. Eugene Santos, Jr., Professor of Engineering at Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. Dr. Abu Doush’s research focuses on "the Effect of Different Properties for Harmony Search Algorithm with Multi-Parent Crossover," which allows him to optimize algorithms for real-world problems like creating timetables for universities, structural optimization, multi-buyer multi-vendor supply chain problem, and flow shop scheduling. Thanks to the support and resources available to him, Dr. Abu Doush was able to quickly complete his first goal and co-author a paper with Dr. Santos.

Since he had so much time to focus on his research at Dartmouth, Dr. Abu Doush was able to accomplish a lot more than he had originally proposed. In addition to co-authoring a paper, he introduced a new algorithm for use in optimization problems, and began testing a new job scheduling algorithm. “The resources that were available to me at Dartmouth, from research papers to computational resources to software enabled me to complete my research.  Also, the collaboration with my mentor there helped me make sure my research was going in the right direction… he was very helpful. Going to Dartmouth enabled me to focus on my research more and to complete more research during my stay there. The infrastructure that is available for the researchers and also how fast they came to fix any issue that happened is very amazing… it was a very nice experience for me.”

He also had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Santos’ graduate students and give them feedback on their projects, which also gave him insight into the new types of projects and ideas that people are exploring today. He is excited to share examples of these projects with his students at AUK to inspire them about the wide variety of problems computer programming can solve.

In addition to optimizing algorithms, Dr. Abu Doush is also passionate about technology accessibility, or developing technology for people with disabilities. He gave a presentation to students and faculty on the topic, and then he and Dr. Santos discussed ideas for future collaborations, such as landmark recognition.

Although Dr. Abu Doush was hard at work for most of his time at Dartmouth, he also made time to enjoy the summer in Hanover. One of his favorite memories was meeting for coffee with the AUK students interns who were also at Dartmouth for the summer, and seeing how excited they were. He loved all of the nature and greenery that Hanover had to offer and particularly enjoyed the warm summer rain.

Dr. Abu Doush was the tenth AUK faculty member to join the Dartmouth fellowship program. The fellowship program is open to AUK faculty members conducting research that can be facilitated by access to Dartmouth's libraries and museum collections, or to senior administrators pursuing professional development projects that can be guided by Dartmouth mentors.
 

Dr. Iyad Abu Doush at the Dartmouth library