Ali Maatouk

Ali Maatouk

Yale University

I am a researcher at the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science (FDS), working with Rex Ying and Leandros Tassiulas on the development of foundation models for structured data. Our work focuses on multimodal learning methods that combine geometric and graph-based approaches to analyze text, time-series data, and graph structures, with applications in observability domains and finance. From 2021 to 2023, I was a researcher at Huawei Technologies in France, working on data-driven optimization of large-scale networks. My work consisted of developing machine-learning models using large-scale data and designing optimization frameworks to improve performance. For my contributions, I was the recipient of the 2021 Huawei Future Star Award.

Before these roles, I completed my PhD in Applied Mathematics, specializing in information theory, jointly at CentraleSupélec and the University of Maryland, College Park, working with Mohamad Assaad and Anthony Ephremides. My research focused on leveraging stochastic hybrid systems and Markov decision processes to minimize information decay in dynamical systems. For my PhD, I received the 2020 Paris-Saclay PhD award for one of the best scientific contributions. Prior to that, I received my MS degree in Applied Mathematics from CentraleSupélec in 2017, specializing in information theory and signal processing. For my MS thesis, I received both the regional and national André Blanc-Lapierre Awards for the best graduate student in France in the domain of electricity, information technology, and communication.

My research interests are in the broad areas of artificial intelligence, mathematical modeling, and data-driven optimization of large-scale systems. Throughout my research journey, I have published over 40 articles in the top venues of the fields of artificial intelligence, signal processing, and information theory. Above all, I consider myself lucky for having been able to work with extraordinary mentors and colleagues, meet exceptional friends, and explore beautiful countries thanks to my professional journey.

🔥 News

  • Dec 2025: 🎉 Our paper “Position: Beyond Euclidean – Foundation Models Should Embrace Non-Euclidean Geometries” was selected for oral presentation at LoG Conference 2025!
  • Dec 2025: Attended NeurIPS 2025, where our two papers were presented: HELM (Hyperbolic LLMs) and TRACE (Multimodal Time Series Retrieval).
  • Nov 2025: Our work on a graph-centric benchmarking tool for large language models was accepted for publication at KDD 2026.
  • Oct 2025: Released a new multi-modal observability dataset for time series and language analysis on HuggingFace [Read the paper here].
  • Sep 2025: Invited to speak at GSMA on Multi-Modal Data Integration for Telecom AI Models.
  • Aug 2025: 🎉 Awarded the ACM KDD 2025 Blue Sky Ideas Award for our work on foundation model applications in the public health domain.
  • Aug 2025: We presented our paper LitFM, which explores the integration of structured graph representations with graph-informed language models, at KDD 2025.
  • Mar 2025: Contributed to a white paper on the application of foundation models in large-scale networked systems [Read the paper here].
  • Feb 2025: 🎉 Awarded the Robert Innovation Fellowship from Yale University.
  • Nov 2024: 🎉 Received the AI Innovation Seed Funding from Yale University.

📝 Publications

Selected Recent Publications

NeurIPS 2025
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Position: Beyond Euclidean – Foundation Models Should Embrace Non-Euclidean Geometries [Oral]

Neil He, Jiahong Liu, Buze Zhang, Ngoc Bui, Ali Maatouk, Menglin Yang, Irwin King, Melanie Weber, Rex Ying

Summary: We provide theoretical and experimental evidence supporting the use of non-Euclidean geometry in foundation models and propose a roadmap for their adaptation.

NeurIPS 2025
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HELM: Hyperbolic Large Language Models via Mixture-of-Curvature Experts

Neil He, Rishabh Anand, Hiren Madhu, Ali Maatouk, Smita Krishnaswamy, Leandros Tassiulas, Menglin Yang, Rex Ying

Summary: We develop the first fully hyperbolic large language model, with new hyperbolic attention, positional encoding, and normalization schemes designed to better capture the hierarchical geometry of language.

NeurIPS 2025
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TRACE: Grounding Time Series in Context for Multimodal Embedding and Retrieval

Jialin Chen, Ziyu Zhao, Gaukhar Nurbek, Aosong Feng, Ali Maatouk, Leandros Tassiulas, Yifeng Gao, Rex Ying

Summary: We introduce a multimodal time-series retriever and encoder that aligns multi-channel temporal signals with textual context to learn cross-modal representations that improve forecasting and classification performance.

KDD 2025
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LitFM: A Retrieval Augmented Structure-aware Foundation Model For Citation Graphs

Jiasheng Zhang, Ali Maatouk, Jialin Chen, Ngoc Bui, Qianqian Xie, Leandros Tassiulas, Hua Xu, Jie Shao, Rex Ying

Summary: We introduce a foundation model that integrates structured graph representations and graph-informed language models for robust retrieval and reasoning, with citation graphs serving as a key application domain.

Full Publication List

2026

  1. LitBench: A Graph-Centric Large Language Model Benchmarking Tool For Literature Tasks. A. Varvarigos, A. Maatouk, J. Zhang, N. Bui, J. Chen, L. Tassiulas, R. Ying. To appear in Proceedings of the 32nd ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2026.

2025

  1. Position: Beyond Euclidean-Foundation Models Should Embrace Non-Euclidean Geometries. N. He, J. Liu, B. Zhang, N. Bui, A. Maatouk, M. Yang, I. King, M. Weber, R. Ying. The Fourth Learning on Graphs Conference (LoG), 2025 [Oral].
  2. TRACE: Grounding Time Series in Context for Multimodal Embedding and Retrieval. J. Chen, Z. Zhao, G. Nurbek, A. Feng, A. Maatouk, L. Tassiulas, Y. Gao, R. Ying. The Thirty-Ninth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2025.
  3. HELM: Hyperbolic Large Language Models via Mixture-of-Curvature Experts. N. He, R. Anand, H. Madhu, A. Maatouk, S. Krishnaswamy, L. Tassiulas, M. Yang, R. Ying. The Thirty-Ninth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2025.
  4. Litfm: A retrieval augmented structure-aware foundation model for citation graphs. J. Zhang, A. Maatouk, J. Chen, N. Bui, Q. Xie, L. Tassiulas, H. Xu, J. Shao, R. Ying. Proceedings of the 31st ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2025.
  5. TelecomTS: A Multi-Modal Observability Dataset for Time Series and Language Analysis. A. Feng, A. Varvarigos, I. Panitsas, D. Fernandez, J. Wei, Y. Guo, J. Chen, A. Maatouk, L. Tassiulas, R. Ying. arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.06063, 2025.
  6. MTBench: A Multimodal Time Series Benchmark for Temporal Reasoning and Question Answering. J. Chen, A. Feng, Z. Zhao, J. Garza, G. Nurbek, C. Qin, A. Maatouk, L. Tassiulas, Y. Gao, R. Ying. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.16858, 2025.
  7. Age of Information Optimization with Preemption Strategies for Correlated Systems. E. Erbayat, A. Maatouk, P. Zou, S. Subramaniam. 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, 2025.
  8. Interdisciplinary development and fine-tuning of cardio, a large language model for cardiovascular health education in hiv care: Tutorial. R. Rullo, A. Maatouk, T. Huang, J. Chen, W. Qiu, G. O'Connor, J. Womack, T. Sadak, C. Rodriguez, P. Carneiro, T. Espinosa, A. Marshall, R. Ying, S. Ramos. Journal of Medical Internet Research 27, e77053, 2025.
  9. Telco-oRAG: Optimizing Retrieval-augmented Generation for Telecom Queries via Hybrid Retrieval and Neural Routing. A. L. Bornea, F. Ayed, A. De Domenico, N. Piovesan, T. S. Salem, A. Maatouk. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2025.
  10. Teleqna: A benchmark dataset to assess large language models telecommunications knowledge. A. Maatouk, F. Ayed, N. Piovesan, A. De Domenico, M. Debbah, Z. Q. Luo. IEEE Network, 2025.
  11. Agoran: An Agentic Open Marketplace for 6G RAN Automation. I. Chatzistefanidis, N. Nikaein, A. Leone, A. Maatouk, L. Tassiulas, R. Morabito, I. Pitsiorlas, M. Kountouris. Computer Networks, 111927, 2025.
  12. Penalty Upon Decision: A Metric to Quantify Decision Costs in Status Update Systems. P. Zou, A. Maatouk, J. Zhang, S. Subramaniam. IEEE Transactions on Networking, 2025.
  13. SANDWICH: Towards an offline, differentiable, fully-trainable wireless neural ray-tracing surrogate. Y. Jin, A. Maatouk, S. Girdzijauskas, S. Xu, L. Tassiulas, R. Ying. 2025 IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning for Communication and Networking, 2025.
  14. Large-Scale AI in Telecom: Charting the Roadmap for Innovation, Scalability, and Enhanced Digital Experiences. A. Shahid, A. Kliks, A. Al-Tahmeesschi, A. Elbakary, A. Nikou, A. Maatouk, et al. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.04184, 2025.

2024

  1. Pay Attention to What Matters. P. L. Silva, A. de Domenico, A. Maatouk, F. Ayed. MINT@NeurIPS2024, 2024.
  2. Tele-LLMs: A Series of Specialized Large Language Models for Telecommunications. A. Maatouk, K. C. Ampudia, R. Ying, L. Tassiulas. arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.05314, 2024.
  3. Age of Information Optimization and State Error Analysis for Correlated Multi-Process Multi-Sensor Systems. E. Erbayat, A. Maatouk, P. Zou, S. Subramaniam. Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing, 2024.
  4. Large language models for telecom: Forthcoming impact on the industry. A. Maatouk, N. Piovesan, F. Ayed, A. De Domenico, M. Debbah. IEEE Communications Magazine, 2024.
  5. Telco-RAG: Navigating the Challenges of Retrieval Augmented Language Models for Telecommunications. A. L. Bornea, F. Ayed, A. De Domenico, N. Piovesan, A. Maatouk. GLOBECOM 2024-2024 IEEE Global Communications Conference, 2359-2364, 2024.
  6. Hermes: A Large Language Model Framework on the Journey to Autonomous Networks. F. Ayed, A. Maatouk, N. Piovesan, A. De Domenico, M. Debbah, Z. Q. Luo. arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.06490, 2024.
  7. Predictive handover strategy in 6G and beyond: A deep and transfer learning approach. I. Panitsas, A. Mudvari, A. Maatouk, L. Tassiulas. arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.08113, 2024.
  8. A framework for the evaluation of network reliability under periodic demand. A. Maatouk, F. Ayed, S. Biao, W. Li, H. Bao, E. Zio. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 32 (3), 2495-2510, 2024.

2023

  1. FlexTrain: A Dynamic Training Framework for Heterogeneous Devices Environments. M. Unsal, A. Maatouk, A. De Domenico, N. Piovesan, F. Ayed. WANT@NeurIPS 2023, 2023.
  2. Age-aware stochastic hybrid systems: Stability, solutions, and applications. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory 4, 762-783, 2023.
  3. An Optimization Framework For Anomaly Detection Scores Refinement With Side Information. A. Maatouk, F. Ayed, W. Li, Y. Wang, H. Zhu, J. Ye. GLOBECOM 2023-2023 IEEE Global Communications Conference, 6043-6049, 2023.
  4. How Costly Was That (In) Decision? P. Zou, A. Maatouk, J. Zhang, S. Subramaniam. 2023 21st International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad hoc, and Wireless Networks, 2023.

2022

  1. Analysis of an age-dependent stochastic hybrid system. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 150-155, 2022.
  2. The age of incorrect information: An enabler of semantics-empowered communication. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications 22 (4), 2621-2635, 2022.
  3. Semantics-empowered communications through the age of incorrect information. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. ICC 2022-IEEE International Conference on Communications, 3995-4000, 2022.
  4. Timely updates with priorities: Lexicographic age optimality. A. Maatouk, Y. Sun, A. Ephremides, M. Assaad. IEEE Transactions on Communications 70 (5), 3020-3033, 2022.

2021

  1. On the Global Optimality of Whittle's Index Policy for Minimizing the Age of Information. S. Kriouile, M. Assaad, A. Maatouk. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 68 (1), 572-600, 2021.

2020

  1. Asymptotically optimal scheduling policy for minimizing the age of information. A. Maatouk, S. Kriouile, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 1747-1752, 2020.
  2. The age of incorrect information: A new performance metric for status updates. A. Maatouk, S. Kriouile, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 28 (5), 2215-2228, 2020.
  3. On the age of information in a CSMA environment. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 28 (2), 818-831, 2020.
  4. On the optimality of the Whittle's index policy for minimizing the age of information. A. Maatouk, S. Kriouile, M. Assad, A. Ephremides. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications 20 (2), 1263-1277, 2020.
  5. Status updates with priorities: Lexicographic optimality. A. Maatouk, Y. Sun, A. Ephremides, M. Assaad. 2020 18th International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad hoc, and Wireless Networks, 2020.

2019

  1. Age of information with prioritized streams: When to buffer preempted packets? A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), 325-329, 2019.
  2. Energy efficient and throughput optimal CSMA scheme. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 27 (1), 316-329, 2019.
  3. Minimizing the age of information in a CSMA environment. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. 2019 International Symposium on Modeling and Optimization in Mobile, Ad Hoc and Wireless Networks, 2019.
  4. Minimizing the age of information: NOMA or OMA? A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. IEEE INFOCOM 2019-IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops, 2019.

2018

  1. The age of updates in a simple relay network. A. Maatouk, M. Assaad, A. Ephremides. 2018 IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW), 1-5, 2018.
  2. On optimal scheduling for joint spatial division and multiplexing approach in FDD massive MIMO. A. Maatouk, S. E. Hajri, M. Assaad, H. Sari. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing 67 (4), 1006-1021, 2018.
  3. Stay Longer at the Network's Edge: A Novel Proactive Caching Policy through Sojourn Time. J. Denis, A. Maatouk, S. E. Hajri, M. Assaad. 2018 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 1-6, 2018.
  4. A simple noma scheme with optimum detection. E. Caliskan, A. Maatouk, M. Koca, M. Assaad, G. Gui, H. Sari. 2018 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 1-6, 2018.
  5. Graph theory based approach to users grouping and downlink scheduling in FDD massive MIMO. A. Maatouk, S. E. Hajri, M. Assaad, H. Sari, S. Sezginer. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 1-7, 2018.
  6. On the foundation of NOMA and its application to 5G cellular networks. H. Sari, A. Maatouk, E. Caliskan, M. Assaad, M. Koca, G. Gui. 2018 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), 1-6, 2018.
  7. Frequency-domain NOMA with two sets of orthogonal signal waveforms. A. Maatouk, E. Çalışkan, M. Koca, M. Assaad, G. Gui, H. Sari. IEEE Communications Letters 22 (5), 906-909, 2018.

🎖 Honors and Awards

  • Dec 2025: Oral presentation for our paper at LoG Conference 2025
  • Aug 2025: ACM KDD 2025 Blue Sky Ideas Award
  • Feb 2025: Robert Innovation Fellowship, Yale University
  • Dec 2021: Huawei Future Star Award
  • Dec 2020: Plateau de Saclay PhD Award for one of the best scientific contributions
  • Nov 2017: André Blanc-Lapierre Award – National Prize for best Master’s student in France in the domain of electricity, information technology, and communication
  • Nov 2017: André Blanc-Lapierre Award – Trophée Ile-de-France for best Master’s project in Paris region
  • Jul 2016: Digicosme Scholarship for academic excellence
  • Jul 2012: Ranked first in the Lebanese Baccalauréat official exams in Beirut

📖 Education

PhD in Applied Mathematics | October 2017 – December 2020
Joint program: CentraleSupélec and University of Maryland, College Park
🏆 2020 Plateau de Saclay PhD Award — recognized for one of the best scientific contributions

MS in Applied Mathematics | September 2016 – September 2017 | Ranked 1st in cohort
CentraleSupélec
🏆 2017 André Blanc-Lapierre Awards — both regional and national recipient

💬 Invited Talks

Global System for Mobile Communications Association | London, UK | September 2025
Multi-Modal Data Integration for Telecom AI Models

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | Karlsruhe, Germany | July 2023
Goal-Oriented Semantics Communications: The Role of Data Freshness

Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, MA | February 2023
Large Scale Optimization of Cellular Networks: The Role of Machine Learning

Yale University | New Haven, CT | February 2023
Large Scale Optimization of Cellular Networks: The Role of Machine Learning

George Washington University | Washington DC | November 2022
Semantics-Empowered Communications: A New Paradigm for Networked Systems

Middle East Technical University | Ankara, Turkey | April 2021
Toward a Semantics-Empowered Communication Paradigm

École Nationale Supérieure de l’Électronique et de ses Applications | Cergy, France | March 2021
Semantics of Data: Age of Information and Beyond

Auburn University | Auburn, AL | March 2020
The Age of Incorrect Information: A New Perspective on Status Update Systems

🎓 Academic Services

AI/ML Community

  • Reviewer for NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, and KDD

Information Theory Community

  • TPC member for IEEE ISIT and IEEE INFOCOM Workshop on Age and Semantics of Information
  • Reviewer for IEEE ISIT, IEEE ITW, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory

Signal Processing Community

  • Organizer of the Age of Information and Beyond symposium at the 57th Annual Asilomar Conference
  • Reviewer for the Asilomar Conference and IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing

Networking Community

  • TPC member for netAIsys @ ACM MobiSys, IEEE ICC Workshop on The Impact of LLMs on 6G Networks, and IEEE GLOBECOM IMMLLM6G Workshop
  • Reviewer for IEEE Infocom, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications

📄 Curriculum Vitae

For detailed information about my research, publications, and professional background, you can download my CV below.

Download CV (PDF, 250KB)
Last updated: December 2025