Aly Salem is a PhD student at the University of Illinois Chicago. Aly graduated from Cairo University with a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering in 2017 and earned an M.Sc. degree in 2021. During this period, he worked as a teaching assistant for CU and as a part-time hydrology engineer for Khatib & Alami consulting company. In June 2021, he started his Ph.D. in water and environmental engineering at the UIC, where he worked as a research and teaching assistant. Aly’s research focuses on applying machine learning techniques for state estimation and sensor placement optimization in water networks.

Dr. Ahmed Abokifa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental (CME) Engineering and the director of the Smart Water Infrastructure Modeling (SWIM) research laboratory at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Professor Abokifa's research focuses on multi-scale modeling and optimization of urban water systems, integrating physics-based models, data-driven approaches, and optimization techniques.