Muhammad Umar Malik

CS Researcher & Marketing Strategist | Bridging AI, HCI, and Brand Storytelling

Based in: Lahore, PakistanMost recently: Marketing Head, CirklesExperience: 1 year

A multidisciplinary engineer and researcher from LUMS with a unique blend of technical depth in AI/HCI and creative leadership in marketing. From building multi-agent fact-checking systems and federated learning models to scaling digital reach by 50% for incubated startups, I specialize in solving complex problems where technology meets human behavior.

Experience

Marketing Head

CirklesLahore, PakistanworkSep 2025 – Apr 2026

Summary

Built the brand’s social media presence from scratch, developing content strategy and overseeing end-to-end production including videography and video editing. Partnered with event organizers and external organizations across Lahore to co-create promotional content for city events. Developed brand guidelines and a content playbook establishing Cirkles’ visual identity across all touchpoints.

Results

Produced a viral documentary-style vertical video campaign featuring artists, achieving a peak of 48.1K views.
Executed end-to-end marketing and content strategy for 6 major city events in Lahore.
Grew social presence to 361 followers and 31 posts from a zero-base start.
Achieved 48.1K views on the top-performing campaign video, demonstrating high organic reach potential.

VideographyVideo EditingContent StrategyBrand Guidelines

Content Curation Lead

U.n.ILahore, PakistanworkFeb 2025 – Dec 2025

Led content strategy and production for a 10,000-user app incubated at the National Incubation Center (NIC), driving a 50.9% increase in accounts reached on Instagram. Handled end-to-end content creation including videography, video editing, and copywriting, producing “build in public” and feature-showcase content across the product lifecycle. Directed a team of interns as head of the marketing function — assigning work, setting creative direction, and managing content production workflows.

InstagramVideographyVideo EditingCopywriting

Project Associate (Intern)

ANC GlobalLahore, PakistanworkJul 2024 – Oct 2024

Summary

Acted as the primary bridge between internal stakeholders and developers for a comprehensive website redesign project.

What I did

Owned requirements research and UX scoping, defining the functional needs for the new consultancy platform.
Coordinated end-to-end communication between ANC leadership and the technical delivery team.

Results

Defined functional requirements and scoped UX for 5+ core platform pages, including the Home, Services, and Consultant Directory modules.
Translated complex business requirements into technical briefs, providing a clear execution roadmap for the external development team.

Stakeholder ManagementTechnical DocumentationUX ScopingRequirements Research

Skills

Technical

Python

Git

Java

PyTorch

NumPy

Pandas

Scikit-Learn

LangChain

LangGraph

C++

Android Studio

Firebase

Adobe Lightroom

DaVinci Resolve

Hugging Face Transformers

Canva

Microsoft Excel

LaTeX

FAISS

FFmpeg

Projects

Automation Bias under Time Pressure

Researcheracademic

Ran a between-subjects randomized experiment (N=129; 645 trials) testing whether an explicit AI confidence bar reduces automation bias under time pressure. Found a 7.6 pp reduction in commission errors (48.7% → 41.1%) in the intervention condition, concentrated in low-confidence AI-wrong trials. Results suggest selective trust calibration rather than blanket distrust — users discount uncertain advice while remaining receptive when AI is reliable.

LLMsUI Intervention

Personalized Federated Learning for Cross-Market Portfolio Allocation

Developer/Researcheracademic

Implemented FedAvg and FedProx in PyTorch + Flower across four structurally heterogeneous equity markets (S&P 500, FTSE 100, KSE-100, Nikkei 225) using LSTM portfolios trained directly on Sharpe ratio loss; evaluated over 10 seeds with block bootstrap CIs and Jobson-Korkie significance tests. Found that federation benefit correlates with Hellinger Distance from the global distribution — KSE-100 recovered from a local Sharpe of −0.015 to +0.742 under federation, with 4× variance reduction, confirming FedAvg is non-trivially asymmetric across markets.

PyTorchFlowerLSTMFedAvgFedProx

LUMS Campus Gate Access System

Co-developeracademic

Co-developed a role-based Android security platform for campus gate management, delivering 65 user stories across 3 sprints in a team of 5 using agile methodology. Implemented shift handover enforcement blocking closure on unresolved custody, overstay, and approval issues; wrote JUnit repository and ViewModel tests covering boundary conditions.

AndroidJavaFirebaseCameraXZXingMVVMFirestoreJUnit

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG Pipeline Optimization)

Developeracademic

Built a RAG pipeline with a systematic hyperparameter sweep across chunk size, overlap, top-K, and similarity threshold on answerable vs. unanswerable question sets. Extended with a prompt caching layer, reducing average response latency by 5.4% while preserving full response consistency.

PythonMistralFAISSLangChain

Multi-Agent Fact-Checking System

Developerpersonal

Built a LangGraph-based adversarial multi-agent pipeline with a researcher, devil’s advocate, neutral verifier, and report writer in a stateful cyclical loop. Benchmarked zero-shot LLM, single RAG agent, and multi-agent crew on a real-world claims dataset; zero-shot outperformed agentic methods on well-known factual claims.

Agentic AIPythonLangGraphLangChainTavily Search

AI After Dismissal: Generative AI as a Response to Medical Gaslighting

Researcherpersonal

Qualitative HCI study investigating how medical dismissal shapes trust in generative AI. Developed 'compensatory trust'—a theoretical construct explaining AI adoption as a response to institutional betrayal. Identified three structural drivers: expert institution failure, high-stakes/inescapable need, and AI accessibility. Key findings: trust is driven by non-dismissal rather than accuracy, and users exhibit 'reliance-without-trust' as a rational hedge when human systems fail. 20+ semi-structured interviews completed.

Generative AIQualitative HCI

Education

Bachelor of Science

Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)Computer ScienceMay 2027

Coursework

AlgorithmsDeep LearningLarge Language ModelsAI & Machine LearningSoftware EngineeringAI-Driven Software EngineeringOperating SystemsNetwork SecurityBlockchain

Societies & activities

Society for Promotion and Development of Engineering and Science (SPADES)

A-Levels

International School LahoreMathematics, Physics, Chemistry, BusinessAug 2023

Recognition

Awards

Distinguished Mining Challenge Paper Award

MSR 20262026

Awarded for the paper 'Novice Developers Produce Larger Review Overhead while Vibe Coding'

Presidential Award

Society for Promotion and Development of Engineering and Science (SPADES)

The society’s highest individual honour, given to one member per year.

Patents & publications

Novice Developers Produce Larger Review Overhead while Vibe Coding

publication2026

MSR 2026, Rio de Janeiro. Studied 22,953 pull requests from 1,719 vibe coders on GitHub to test whether developer experience still matters in AI-assisted development. Found that lower-experience vibe coders submit 2.15× more commits and receive 4.52× more review comments than experienced ones. Reported 31% lower PR acceptance rates for novice vibe coders.

Q&A

In Muhammad’s own words.

What are the structural conditions that drive 'compensatory trust' in AI?

Compensatory trust isn't just about AI being "better"—it's a structural response to institutional failure. It emerges when three conditions align: (1) a credentialed expert institution (like healthcare or law) fails or dismisses the user, (2) the user faces a high-stakes, inescapable problem, and (3) an accessible AI alternative exists. In these cases, trust is relational rather than technical; users rely on AI because it offers the non-invalidation they were denied by human experts.

Governance & advisory

Executive Officer

Society for Promotion and Development of Engineering and Science (SPADES)committee chairMay 2026 – Present

Oversee all day-to-day operations at SPADES as part of the Extended Council, managing the society's core functions and strategic execution.

Overseeing all day-to-day operations of the society.
Serving as a member of the Extended Council to drive strategic execution.

Impact

Updated Executive Officer role with Extended Council responsibilities and operational oversight.

Director – Media and Promotions

Society for Promotion and Development of Engineering and Science (SPADES)board memberJun 2025 – May 2026

Directed the media and promotional strategy for the society's flagship engineering and science events, reaching over 1,600 participants.

Managed 4 distinct brand identities and Instagram accounts: SPADES Main, LSS, PSIFI, and Startup Weekend.
Oversaw outreach and promotional campaigns for a flagship event with 1,600+ delegates.

Impact

Updated Director role to reflect promotion.

Media and Design Coordinator

Techstars Startup Weekend LahoreotherNov 2024 – Mar 2025

Led visuals and media promotions for Pakistan’s leading entrepreneurial marathon, run with Google for Startups.

Hire MuhammadReach out about a role, a contract or a conversation.For recruiters

Muhammad's twin is AI, it can make mistakes.

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