Samah Alshrief, Ph.D.
AI data scientist, research-computing specialist, and higher-education policy analyst.
I help universities and researchers turn complex questions into working data and computing — building research data services, private AI tools, and the infrastructure that makes computational research possible.
About
I'm a data scientist and research-computing specialist at Seton Hall University, where I help faculty and students turn research questions into working data and computing workflows. I led the university's first computational research projects and now spearhead its Research Computing Initiative.
My background bridges the technical and the institutional: a Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership, Management, and Policy — with a concentration in research, assessment, and program evaluation — and a Master of Data Science. I work across research data management, applied and private AI, and evidence-based policy analysis.
Based in New Jersey, USA. Full name: Samah Faris Alshrief.
Data management systems, research data services, and high-performance and cloud computing.
Program evaluation and policy research grounded in rigorous methods.
A practitioner inside the university — building research-computing capacity and training people to use it.
Document-grounded AI built on institutional data, with attention to privacy and ethics.
Work with me
Advising, training, and building for universities, research teams, and organizations working with data and AI.
Research data strategy, research-computing setup (HPC and cloud), data governance, and IRB-aligned data management. Helping teams stand up the infrastructure and practices that make computational research possible.
Hands-on sessions in data science and research tools — R, Python, STATA, ArcGIS, Atlas.ti, Qualtrics, research data management, and AI literacy — tailored to your team's projects and skill level.
Design and deployment of document-grounded, private AI tools over your institution's own data — retrieval-augmented systems that keep sensitive material in-house, as in my syllabus-analysis platform.
Talks and guest sessions on AI in higher education, research computing, private AI, and data ethics — for conferences, campuses, and organizations.
Discuss a project [Add rates or engagement options if you'd like]
Selected Work
A sample of applied projects across AI, research computing, and data science. The full record is in my CV.
Designed and deployed a private AI app for Business School faculty to analyze syllabi and generate document-grounded feedback — built with Python, Streamlit, ChromaDB, and a retrieval-augmented pipeline.
Leading the formation of a Research Computing Committee and an internal grant proposal for HPC clusters, high-performance storage, and scalable resources to support computational research across disciplines.
Pioneered the university's first cloud research-computing project — RStudio on AWS LightSail for Research — and taught sequence-data analysis using SRA and NCBI toolkits.
Built predictive models on 3D biomechanics data of baseball players — using regression, decision trees, random forests, and SVMs — to identify predictors of speed and reduce injury risk.
Coordinated 43 concurrent research projects, delivering data-management and analysis training across quantitative, qualitative, ArcGIS, and social-media methods, with one-on-one student consultations.
Served as data specialist for the School of Diplomacy — leading Atlas.ti and Stata training and building lesson content with the policy librarian for international-relations research.
Background
Teaching
University courses and hands-on workshops in data science, research methods, and computing. Syllabi available on request.
Writing & Talks
Selected talks below. Articles and commentary on AI, research computing, and higher education are coming here — subscribe or reach out to follow along.
What private, document-grounded AI is, when a university should use it instead of a public chatbot, and how to build one responsibly.
Read more →Contact
For consulting, training, private-AI projects, or speaking — reach out directly.