Omar Farouk Zouak

PhD student in artificial intelligence at ENSIA, Algiers. I work on reinforcement learning for reasoning in language models, with rewards a program can verify.

Selected paper

Findings of EMNLP 2026

Counterexample Generation via Per-Theorem Symbolic Verifiers: When Imitation Hurts and Reinforcement Repairs

Omar Farouk Zouak, Houssam Eddine Boukhalfa, Lakehal Soumaya, Shiv Katiyar, Samia Nefti-Meziani

  • Released SymCE: 4,707 false algebra and real-analysis conjectures, each with an executable verifier that is also the reward function.
Code and verifiersProject page

All research

Selected awards

  • 20251st place, Techno-Hub University Mathematics CompetitionInter-university, proof-based: real analysis, abstract algebra, number theory.Announcement
  • 20241st place, QHack Quantum Coding Challenge700+ teams worldwide; every challenge solved in 48 hours.Certificate
  • 2024/2025Huawei Seeds for the FutureRanked 3rd in the national selection examination; 20 students selected.Certificate
  • 20231st place, Impact of CodeNational competitive programming, 400+ participants.Certificate

All awards

News

  • Sept. 2026Started a PhD in artificial intelligence at ENSIA.
  • Aug. 2026First-author paper accepted to Findings of EMNLP 2026.
  • Aug. 2026Submitted a paper on retrieving classical Arabic poetry, for EACL 2027.
  • July 2026Ranked first in the national doctoral entrance examination. Graduated from ENSIA, ranked 3rd in cohort.

Remote, from Algiers

Four countries, all remote. Hover or tap a city.
AlgiersBirminghamSaclayAbu DhabiPolymath Jr.

Contact

Open to PhD positions and research internships from 2027.

ResumeGitHub