Badr AlKhamissi
@bkhmsi.bsky.social
PhD at EPFL 🧠💻
Ex @MetaAI, @SonyAI, @Microsoft
Egyptian 🇪🇬
Ex @MetaAI, @SonyAI, @Microsoft
Egyptian 🇪🇬
Three years ago, I built a website called Egyptians in AI Research. Today, that project has grown into Egyptian Researchers in Computer Science thanks to the help of @mo-mo2025.bsky.social!
I wrote a blog post on how it grew, and why it expanded beyond AI.
🔗 egyptians-in-cs.github.io
🧵👇
I wrote a blog post on how it grew, and why it expanded beyond AI.
🔗 egyptians-in-cs.github.io
🧵👇
Egyptian Researchers in Computer Science
A website dedicated to showcasing the profiles of prominent Egyptian researchers in Computer Science.
egyptians-in-cs.github.io
January 19, 2026 at 8:16 PM
Three years ago, I built a website called Egyptians in AI Research. Today, that project has grown into Egyptian Researchers in Computer Science thanks to the help of @mo-mo2025.bsky.social!
I wrote a blog post on how it grew, and why it expanded beyond AI.
🔗 egyptians-in-cs.github.io
🧵👇
I wrote a blog post on how it grew, and why it expanded beyond AI.
🔗 egyptians-in-cs.github.io
🧵👇
Great to see our "From Language to Cognition" work featured in @mordecwhy.bsky.social's latest piece on language models and the brain. Glad to contribute to the conversation!
www.foommagazine.org/language-mod...
www.foommagazine.org/language-mod...
Language models resemble more than just language cortex, show neuroscientists
In a paper presented in November 2025 at the Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) conference, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), the Massachusetts Ins...
www.foommagazine.org
January 16, 2026 at 7:03 PM
Great to see our "From Language to Cognition" work featured in @mordecwhy.bsky.social's latest piece on language models and the brain. Glad to contribute to the conversation!
www.foommagazine.org/language-mod...
www.foommagazine.org/language-mod...
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
Missed the Re-Align hackathon at ICLR or CCN 2025 — or want more? 🙂 Re-Align is back at ICLR 2026 🚀 Beyond the paper track, we’re launching a persistent shared-task challenge + challenge paper track. Can’t wait to see your creative & critical takes on representational alignment 🔥🥳
🎉 Re-Align is back for its 4th edition at ICLR 2026!
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
January 8, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Missed the Re-Align hackathon at ICLR or CCN 2025 — or want more? 🙂 Re-Align is back at ICLR 2026 🚀 Beyond the paper track, we’re launching a persistent shared-task challenge + challenge paper track. Can’t wait to see your creative & critical takes on representational alignment 🔥🥳
🎉 Re-Align is back for its 4th edition at ICLR 2026!
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
January 7, 2026 at 4:27 PM
🎉 Re-Align is back for its 4th edition at ICLR 2026!
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields.
📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog)
⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers
🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/
This year was hard, personally and globally, from ongoing visa issues that disrupted my life and may prevent me from achieving one of my dreams, to the state of the world itself.
Still grateful for what I achieved and for everyone who supported me.
Wishing us all a brighter year ahead. ✨
Still grateful for what I achieved and for everyone who supported me.
Wishing us all a brighter year ahead. ✨
December 31, 2025 at 3:43 PM
This year was hard, personally and globally, from ongoing visa issues that disrupted my life and may prevent me from achieving one of my dreams, to the state of the world itself.
Still grateful for what I achieved and for everyone who supported me.
Wishing us all a brighter year ahead. ✨
Still grateful for what I achieved and for everyone who supported me.
Wishing us all a brighter year ahead. ✨
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
1/ 🌍 How does mixing data from hundreds of languages affect LLM training?
In our new paper "Revisiting Multilingual Data Mixtures in Language Model Pretraining" we revisit core assumptions about multilinguality using 1.1B-3B models trained on up to 400 languages.
🧵👇
In our new paper "Revisiting Multilingual Data Mixtures in Language Model Pretraining" we revisit core assumptions about multilinguality using 1.1B-3B models trained on up to 400 languages.
🧵👇
December 15, 2025 at 6:18 PM
1/ 🌍 How does mixing data from hundreds of languages affect LLM training?
In our new paper "Revisiting Multilingual Data Mixtures in Language Model Pretraining" we revisit core assumptions about multilinguality using 1.1B-3B models trained on up to 400 languages.
🧵👇
In our new paper "Revisiting Multilingual Data Mixtures in Language Model Pretraining" we revisit core assumptions about multilinguality using 1.1B-3B models trained on up to 400 languages.
🧵👇
Looking forward to be speaking at IndabaX Sudan on Building Responsible and Ethical LLMs!
📅 Saturday, December 13th
⏰ 2:00 PM (GMT+2)
Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
See you all there! :)
📅 Saturday, December 13th
⏰ 2:00 PM (GMT+2)
Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
See you all there! :)
December 7, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Looking forward to be speaking at IndabaX Sudan on Building Responsible and Ethical LLMs!
📅 Saturday, December 13th
⏰ 2:00 PM (GMT+2)
Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
See you all there! :)
📅 Saturday, December 13th
⏰ 2:00 PM (GMT+2)
Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
See you all there! :)
Not attending NeurIPS this year, but very much looking to connect.
I’m seeking a PhD research internship next summer in AI for Science, especially where AI meets brain and cognitive sciences. 🧠
If you’re hiring, I’d love to connect!
bkhmsi.github.io
I’m seeking a PhD research internship next summer in AI for Science, especially where AI meets brain and cognitive sciences. 🧠
If you’re hiring, I’d love to connect!
bkhmsi.github.io
Badr AlKhamissi's Website
I am a PhD candidate at EPFL, co-advised by Antoine Bosselut and Martin Schrimpf. My research lies at the intersection of machine learning, neuroscience and cognitive science. Prior to EPFL, I was an ...
bkhmsi.github.io
December 2, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Not attending NeurIPS this year, but very much looking to connect.
I’m seeking a PhD research internship next summer in AI for Science, especially where AI meets brain and cognitive sciences. 🧠
If you’re hiring, I’d love to connect!
bkhmsi.github.io
I’m seeking a PhD research internship next summer in AI for Science, especially where AI meets brain and cognitive sciences. 🧠
If you’re hiring, I’d love to connect!
bkhmsi.github.io
I finally found time to update the Egyptians in AI Research website, apologies for the delay!
Super excited to share that we now feature 227 incredible Egyptian researchers!! 🤯
Link: bkhmsi.github.io/egyptians-in...
Super excited to share that we now feature 227 incredible Egyptian researchers!! 🤯
Link: bkhmsi.github.io/egyptians-in...
Egyptians in AI Research
A website dedicated to showcasing the profiles of prominent Egyptian researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
bkhmsi.github.io
November 24, 2025 at 6:35 AM
I finally found time to update the Egyptians in AI Research website, apologies for the delay!
Super excited to share that we now feature 227 incredible Egyptian researchers!! 🤯
Link: bkhmsi.github.io/egyptians-in...
Super excited to share that we now feature 227 incredible Egyptian researchers!! 🤯
Link: bkhmsi.github.io/egyptians-in...
On my way to #EMNLP2025 🇨🇳
I’ll be presenting our work (Oral) on Nov 5, Special Theme session, Room A106-107 at 14:30.
Let’s talk brains 🧠, machines 🤖, and everything in between :D
Looking forward to all the amazing discussions!
I’ll be presenting our work (Oral) on Nov 5, Special Theme session, Room A106-107 at 14:30.
Let’s talk brains 🧠, machines 🤖, and everything in between :D
Looking forward to all the amazing discussions!
November 2, 2025 at 12:06 PM
On my way to #EMNLP2025 🇨🇳
I’ll be presenting our work (Oral) on Nov 5, Special Theme session, Room A106-107 at 14:30.
Let’s talk brains 🧠, machines 🤖, and everything in between :D
Looking forward to all the amazing discussions!
I’ll be presenting our work (Oral) on Nov 5, Special Theme session, Room A106-107 at 14:30.
Let’s talk brains 🧠, machines 🤖, and everything in between :D
Looking forward to all the amazing discussions!
🚀 Excited to share a major update to our “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners” (MiCRo) paper!
We ask: What benefits can we unlock by designing language models whose inner structure mirrors the brain’s functional specialization?
More below 🧠👇
cognitive-reasoners.epfl.ch
We ask: What benefits can we unlock by designing language models whose inner structure mirrors the brain’s functional specialization?
More below 🧠👇
cognitive-reasoners.epfl.ch
October 20, 2025 at 12:10 PM
🚀 Excited to share a major update to our “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners” (MiCRo) paper!
We ask: What benefits can we unlock by designing language models whose inner structure mirrors the brain’s functional specialization?
More below 🧠👇
cognitive-reasoners.epfl.ch
We ask: What benefits can we unlock by designing language models whose inner structure mirrors the brain’s functional specialization?
More below 🧠👇
cognitive-reasoners.epfl.ch
Excited to be part of this cool work led by Melika Honarmand!
We show that by selectively targeting VLM units that mirror the brain’s visual word form area, models develop dyslexic-like reading impairments, while leaving other abilities intact!! 🧠🤖
Details in the 🧵👇
We show that by selectively targeting VLM units that mirror the brain’s visual word form area, models develop dyslexic-like reading impairments, while leaving other abilities intact!! 🧠🤖
Details in the 🧵👇
October 2, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Excited to be part of this cool work led by Melika Honarmand!
We show that by selectively targeting VLM units that mirror the brain’s visual word form area, models develop dyslexic-like reading impairments, while leaving other abilities intact!! 🧠🤖
Details in the 🧵👇
We show that by selectively targeting VLM units that mirror the brain’s visual word form area, models develop dyslexic-like reading impairments, while leaving other abilities intact!! 🧠🤖
Details in the 🧵👇
Now that the ICLR deadline is behind us, happy to share that From Language to Cognition has been accepted as an Oral at #EMNLP2025! 🎉
Looking forward to seeing many of you in Suzhou 🇨🇳
Looking forward to seeing many of you in Suzhou 🇨🇳
🚨 New Preprint!!
LLMs trained on next-word prediction (NWP) show high alignment with brain recordings. But what drives this alignment—linguistic structure or world knowledge? And how does this alignment evolve during training? Our new paper explores these questions. 👇🧵
LLMs trained on next-word prediction (NWP) show high alignment with brain recordings. But what drives this alignment—linguistic structure or world knowledge? And how does this alignment evolve during training? Our new paper explores these questions. 👇🧵
September 25, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Now that the ICLR deadline is behind us, happy to share that From Language to Cognition has been accepted as an Oral at #EMNLP2025! 🎉
Looking forward to seeing many of you in Suzhou 🇨🇳
Looking forward to seeing many of you in Suzhou 🇨🇳
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
1/🚨 New preprint
How do #LLMs’ inner features change as they train? Using #crosscoders + a new causal metric, we map when features appear, strengthen, or fade across checkpoints—opening a new lens on training dynamics beyond loss curves & benchmarks.
#interpretability
How do #LLMs’ inner features change as they train? Using #crosscoders + a new causal metric, we map when features appear, strengthen, or fade across checkpoints—opening a new lens on training dynamics beyond loss curves & benchmarks.
#interpretability
September 25, 2025 at 2:02 PM
1/🚨 New preprint
How do #LLMs’ inner features change as they train? Using #crosscoders + a new causal metric, we map when features appear, strengthen, or fade across checkpoints—opening a new lens on training dynamics beyond loss curves & benchmarks.
#interpretability
How do #LLMs’ inner features change as they train? Using #crosscoders + a new causal metric, we map when features appear, strengthen, or fade across checkpoints—opening a new lens on training dynamics beyond loss curves & benchmarks.
#interpretability
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
NEW PAPER ALERT: Recent studies have shown that LLMs often lack robustness to distribution shifts in their reasoning. Our paper proposes a new method, AbstRaL, to augment LLMs’ reasoning robustness, by promoting their abstract thinking with granular reinforcement learning.
June 23, 2025 at 2:32 PM
NEW PAPER ALERT: Recent studies have shown that LLMs often lack robustness to distribution shifts in their reasoning. Our paper proposes a new method, AbstRaL, to augment LLMs’ reasoning robustness, by promoting their abstract thinking with granular reinforcement learning.
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
Check out @bkhmsi.bsky.social 's great work on mixture-of-expert models that are specialized to represent the behavior of known brain networks.
🚨 New Preprint!!
Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge.
1/ 🧵👇
Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge.
1/ 🧵👇
June 18, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Check out @bkhmsi.bsky.social 's great work on mixture-of-expert models that are specialized to represent the behavior of known brain networks.
🚨 New Preprint!!
Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge.
1/ 🧵👇
Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge.
1/ 🧵👇
June 17, 2025 at 3:07 PM
🚨 New Preprint!!
Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge.
1/ 🧵👇
Thrilled to share with you our latest work: “Mixture of Cognitive Reasoners”, a modular transformer architecture inspired by the brain’s functional networks: language, logic, social reasoning, and world knowledge.
1/ 🧵👇
Excited to present tomorrow at the @c3nlp.bsky.social workshop at #NAACL2025 our position paper:
"Hire Your Anthropologist!" 🎓
Led by the amazing Mai Alkhamissi & @lrz-persona.bsky.social, under the supervision of @monadiab77.bsky.social. Don’t miss it! 😄
arXiv link coming soon!
"Hire Your Anthropologist!" 🎓
Led by the amazing Mai Alkhamissi & @lrz-persona.bsky.social, under the supervision of @monadiab77.bsky.social. Don’t miss it! 😄
arXiv link coming soon!
May 4, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Excited to present tomorrow at the @c3nlp.bsky.social workshop at #NAACL2025 our position paper:
"Hire Your Anthropologist!" 🎓
Led by the amazing Mai Alkhamissi & @lrz-persona.bsky.social, under the supervision of @monadiab77.bsky.social. Don’t miss it! 😄
arXiv link coming soon!
"Hire Your Anthropologist!" 🎓
Led by the amazing Mai Alkhamissi & @lrz-persona.bsky.social, under the supervision of @monadiab77.bsky.social. Don’t miss it! 😄
arXiv link coming soon!
Excited to be at #NAACL2025 in Albuquerque! I’ll be presenting our paper “The LLM Language Network” as an Oral tomorrow at 2:00 PM in Ballroom C, hope to see you there!
Looking forward to all the discussions! 🎤 🧠
Looking forward to all the discussions! 🎤 🧠
April 30, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Excited to be at #NAACL2025 in Albuquerque! I’ll be presenting our paper “The LLM Language Network” as an Oral tomorrow at 2:00 PM in Ballroom C, hope to see you there!
Looking forward to all the discussions! 🎤 🧠
Looking forward to all the discussions! 🎤 🧠
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
Before ICLR 2025 comes to an end today, a few #NeuroAI impressions from Singapore.
First, very happy to present our work on TopoLM as an oral, here with
@neilrathi.bsky.social
initial thread: bsky.app/profile/hann...
paper: doi.org/10.48550/arX...
code: github.com/epflneuroailab
First, very happy to present our work on TopoLM as an oral, here with
@neilrathi.bsky.social
initial thread: bsky.app/profile/hann...
paper: doi.org/10.48550/arX...
code: github.com/epflneuroailab
April 28, 2025 at 3:17 AM
Before ICLR 2025 comes to an end today, a few #NeuroAI impressions from Singapore.
First, very happy to present our work on TopoLM as an oral, here with
@neilrathi.bsky.social
initial thread: bsky.app/profile/hann...
paper: doi.org/10.48550/arX...
code: github.com/epflneuroailab
First, very happy to present our work on TopoLM as an oral, here with
@neilrathi.bsky.social
initial thread: bsky.app/profile/hann...
paper: doi.org/10.48550/arX...
code: github.com/epflneuroailab
Not at #ICLR2025 this year, but excited that @neilrathi.bsky.social and @hannesmehrer.bsky.social will be presenting our TopoLM paper during Friday’s Oral Session 4C. Don’t miss it!
Together with
@neil_rathi
I will present our #ICLR2025 Oral paper on TopoLM, a topographic language model!
Oral: Friday, 25 Apr 4:18 p.m. (session 4C)
Poster: Friday, 25 Apr 10 a.m. --> Hall 3 + Hall 2B Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2410.11516
Code and weights: github.com/epflneuroailab
@neil_rathi
I will present our #ICLR2025 Oral paper on TopoLM, a topographic language model!
Oral: Friday, 25 Apr 4:18 p.m. (session 4C)
Poster: Friday, 25 Apr 10 a.m. --> Hall 3 + Hall 2B Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2410.11516
Code and weights: github.com/epflneuroailab
April 23, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Not at #ICLR2025 this year, but excited that @neilrathi.bsky.social and @hannesmehrer.bsky.social will be presenting our TopoLM paper during Friday’s Oral Session 4C. Don’t miss it!
With the Studio Ghibli AI trend taking over the internet, it's a good moment to reshare a blog post I wrote two years ago: The Curse of "Creative" AI.
Interested to hear your thoughts on this matter!
medium.com/@bkhmsi/the-...
Interested to hear your thoughts on this matter!
medium.com/@bkhmsi/the-...
The Curse of ‘Creative’ AI
Should we create art using AI?
medium.com
March 31, 2025 at 6:55 PM
With the Studio Ghibli AI trend taking over the internet, it's a good moment to reshare a blog post I wrote two years ago: The Curse of "Creative" AI.
Interested to hear your thoughts on this matter!
medium.com/@bkhmsi/the-...
Interested to hear your thoughts on this matter!
medium.com/@bkhmsi/the-...
🚨 New Preprint!!
LLMs trained on next-word prediction (NWP) show high alignment with brain recordings. But what drives this alignment—linguistic structure or world knowledge? And how does this alignment evolve during training? Our new paper explores these questions. 👇🧵
LLMs trained on next-word prediction (NWP) show high alignment with brain recordings. But what drives this alignment—linguistic structure or world knowledge? And how does this alignment evolve during training? Our new paper explores these questions. 👇🧵
March 5, 2025 at 3:58 PM
🚨 New Preprint!!
LLMs trained on next-word prediction (NWP) show high alignment with brain recordings. But what drives this alignment—linguistic structure or world knowledge? And how does this alignment evolve during training? Our new paper explores these questions. 👇🧵
LLMs trained on next-word prediction (NWP) show high alignment with brain recordings. But what drives this alignment—linguistic structure or world knowledge? And how does this alignment evolve during training? Our new paper explores these questions. 👇🧵
Reposted by Badr AlKhamissi
Lots of great news out of the EPFL NLP lab these last few weeks. We'll be at @iclr-conf.bsky.social and @naaclmeeting.bsky.social in April / May to present some of our work in training dynamics, model representations, reasoning, and AI democratization. Come chat with us during the conference!
February 25, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Lots of great news out of the EPFL NLP lab these last few weeks. We'll be at @iclr-conf.bsky.social and @naaclmeeting.bsky.social in April / May to present some of our work in training dynamics, model representations, reasoning, and AI democratization. Come chat with us during the conference!
It’s very inspiring how scientists throughout history turned technological limitations into innovation. Constraints spark creativity! ✨
Must watch video:
youtu.be/YdOXS_9_P4U?...
Must watch video:
youtu.be/YdOXS_9_P4U?...
Terence Tao on how we measure the cosmos | Distance ladder part 1
YouTube video by 3Blue1Brown
youtu.be
February 16, 2025 at 9:45 PM
It’s very inspiring how scientists throughout history turned technological limitations into innovation. Constraints spark creativity! ✨
Must watch video:
youtu.be/YdOXS_9_P4U?...
Must watch video:
youtu.be/YdOXS_9_P4U?...