Dr. Shazia Afzal

Dr. Shazia Afzal is a Gates Scholar who holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, where her research focused on automatic affect inference in learning environments. In her current role as a Research Engineer at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), she works closely with research and software engineering teams to facilitate technology transfer, drive product innovation, and explore commercialization pathways.

Previously, as a Research Scientist at IBM Research, Dr. Afzal contributed to projects in data quality and readiness for machine learning, automated decision optimization, conversational tutoring, and emotion detection. Her notable work includes the Data Readiness Report, Data Quality Toolkit, the Medical School Tutor (MST) developed for the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and the Watson Tutor for Pearson Education in the United States.