Meet the first woman in the Middle East with a PhD in AI

Baothman has recently been appointed as the board president of the Artificial Intelligence Society.

When Dr. Fatmah Baothman forayed into the world of computer systems, she discovered her penchant for machine communication and interaction.
Today, Baothman is the first woman in the Middle East to earn a Ph.D in modern artificial intelligence (AI) and has recently been appointed as the board president of the Artificial Intelligence Society.
While studying English at the University of Arizona, Baothman was introduced to computer systems that help non-native English speakers. In 2013, she graduated from the School of Computing and Engineering at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, where she obtained a Ph.D. in phonology-based automatic speech recognition for Arabic.

Dr. Fatmah Baothman is no ordinary Saudi woman. She embodies women's empowerment in the Kingdom, as the first woman in the Middle East with a PhD in Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) https://t.co/sRq7MdR6Ik pic.twitter.com/5DDBliTvSr
- Arab News (@arabnews) March 7, 2019

Here, Baothman's work primarily focused on AI, and she got a chance to learn forecasting, pattern recognition, phonology and phonetics, acoustics, machine learning and mathematics. Her contribution to AI won her many laurels including two international awards from the US and the UK. 
Baothman has worked for over 25 years as an assistant professor in computing and IT at KAU, and played a vital role in establishing the university's computer science department for women, reported Arab News.

We warmly welcome on board Dr. Fatmah Baothman Doctor of Artificial Intelligence, King Abdulaziz University speaker in the #ArtificialIntelligence Session at the #SaudiIoT Conference.#????_??????_??????_???????#??????_???????#?????_??????_??????? pic.twitter.com/jLxpjapxgt
- Saudi IoT ?????? ???????? ??????? ??????? ??????? (@saudiiot) January 14, 2019

She has served as Apple center manager, director of the education sector at King Abdullah Economic City, director of the E-learning Researcher Program in Dubai, deputy director of the information technology (IT) center at King Abdul Aziz University (KAU), and president of the Women Engineers Committee at the Saudi Council of Engineering.
Not resting on her laurels, Baothman went to write several books on AI, and many of her articles have been published in magazines and scientific journals. She also translated a book on modern AI into Arabic language to give a better understanding of the subject.

• Saudi Arabia