Foutse Yuehgoh

Foutse Yuehgoh, Ph.D

AI Researcher & Data Scientist · Open to AI Leadership Roles · Toulon, France

Ph.D in Computer Science with deep expertise in graph theory, knowledge graphs, recommendation systems, and NLP. I bring 5+ years bridging AI research and product delivery — from designing intelligent pipelines and RAG systems to facilitating AI adoption across non-technical teams. I thrive at the intersection of technical depth and strategic vision.

I've led cross-functional AI integration, delivered enterprise compliance tools from prototype to production, supervised student projects, and championed responsible AI practices in corporate environments. On the research side, I co-author award-winning publications (ACL, NAACL, FAccT) and chair the selection committee for Deep Learning Indaba 2026, Africa's premier ML conference.

"Let love lead."
— This simple yet profound quote guides how I work, collaborate, and live.

From Aspiring Doctor to AI Researcher

I grew up in Cameroon, where my parents dreamed I'd become a doctor. Instead, I fell in love with mathematics — sparked by conversations with my father who connected abstract concepts to real life. That passion led me to a math degree with a CS minor, then a Big Data master's at AIMS Senegal, a second master's at Paris Saclay, and eventually a CIFRE PhD combining industry and research at CNAM Paris.

Along the way, I navigated being a woman in a male-dominated field and transitioned between Anglophone and Francophone education systems — challenges that became strengths, giving me adaptability, cross-cultural fluency, and a deep drive to open doors for the next generation. Outside of work, I love singing, dancing, and creating music with AI.

Read my full story on Words That Count →

Leadership & Soft Skills

Cross-functional Facilitation

Experienced in translating AI concepts for non-technical stakeholders — from presenting AI best practices to entire companies, to running workshops on responsible AI and shadow AI risks. I bridge the gap between data science teams and business decision-makers.

Product Thinking & Ownership

Delivered AI products from prototype to production: scoping needs with stakeholders, iterating based on expert feedback, prioritizing features, and managing delivery timelines. Comfortable owning the full cycle from user need to deployed solution.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

Supervised interns and student projects (SkillMatch AI, HydroAs, ESILV). Founded KmerAI, co-organized IndabaX Cameroon, and chair the DLI 2026 selection committee — coordinating distributed teams, volunteers, and cross-continent logistics.

Iterative & Agile Mindset

Thrive in environments where requirements evolve. Experienced working through ambiguity — aligning divergent expert opinions, converging on shared definitions, and delivering incrementally while maintaining quality.

Bilingual & Cross-cultural

Native English and French speaker. Navigated Anglophone and Francophone academic and professional systems. Collaborated with teams across various cultures and visited 9+ countries (Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Ghana, France, Italy, Canada, USA, Rwanda).

Responsible AI Advocacy

Delivered talks on AI safety in enterprise contexts: data confidentiality, prompt hygiene, shadow AI risks, and responsible use of LLMs with sensitive documents. Passionate about ethical, human-centered AI deployment.

Expertise & Skills

Core Expertise

Graph Theory Knowledge Graphs Graph Data Science Recommendation Systems Natural Language Processing Machine Learning Deep Learning

Applied AI

Large Language Models RAG Systems Agentic AI Prompt Engineering Information Retrieval

Recent Domain Application

Applied AI and graph expertise to cybersecurity governance, risk, and compliance (GRC):

Cybersecurity GRC NIST 800-53 ISO 27001 / 27002 NIS2 DORA SecNumCloud ANSSI 3CF RGPD SCF / OSCAL

Tools & Tech Stack

Python SQL Cypher / Neo4j LangChain LlamaIndex FastAPI PyTorch TensorFlow pdfplumber / PyMuPDF Docker AWS (App Runner, ECR) GitLab CI/CD n8n Elasticsearch Faiss / Chroma Power BI NeoDash

Professional Experience

January 2025 – March 2026

Data Scientist

EGERIE · Toulon, France
  • Built automated GRC data extraction pipelines for French cybersecurity regulatory PDFs (3CF v3, IGI 901, ANSSI, DORA, NIS2, SecNumCloud) using pdfplumber and GPT APIs, transforming unstructured documents into structured JSON.
  • Developed and deployed a collaborative GRC Navigator web platform (FastAPI + AWS App Runner via ECR/Docker) enabling multi-user review of controls and tasks across 7 regulatory frameworks.
  • Conducted NIST 800-53 / SCF / European framework mapping analysis, identifying EU-relevant controls for our context.
  • Implemented and validated a RAG prototype on SCF data, demonstrating feasibility of structured information access over compliance document corpora.
  • Facilitated AI adoption across non-technical teams: delivered company-wide presentations on AI best practices, data confidentiality, prompt hygiene, and shadow AI risks.
  • Built document processing solutions for cross-departmental needs (PDF extraction, XLS → XML conversions) and led cross-functional AI services integration.
March 2021 – September 2024

Research Scientist

COEXEL · Toulon, France
  • Developed automated news article and tag recommendation systems for newsletter creation, improving content curation efficiency.
  • Created an information retrieval system using LLMs and vector databases (Faiss, Chroma) to enable seamless interaction with extensive document collections.
  • Conducted Ph.D research on multiplex graph-based recommendation systems at the intersection of graph theory and NLP, in partnership with CNAM Paris and De Vinci Research Center.
July 2020 – March 2021

Data Analyst

COEXEL · Toulon, France
  • Developed a document recommendation platform leveraging topic modeling to analyze and match documents to the top 10 themes for timely, relevant recommendations with source URL tracing.
September 2019 – April 2020

Data Scientist Intern

Group PSA (now Stellantis) · Vélizy, France
  • Audio data analysis and signal processing using deep learning and ML models for classifying noise levels in FM audio signals (spectrogram, feature extraction, raw amplitude).
  • Work resulted in a patent for an innovative audio signal processing technique.

Projects & Supervision

FarmA

USSD-based agricultural advisory platform for rural communities in Kenya — providing crop guidance, market prices, and weather alerts via basic mobile phones. Winning project at the Deep Learning Indaba 2024 Ideathon Challenge.

DLI 2024 Ideathon Winner

SkillMatch AI

Internship supervision project building a competency matching system using Neo4j knowledge graphs and a LangChain recommendation agent for skills-to-opportunity mapping.

Internship Supervision

Automated Health Indicator Discovery

Academic supervision of an AIMS Cameroon master's internship (Oumar Moussa, 2026). Designed an automated pipeline for epidemiological indicator discovery and dashboard generation within the PlaCARD platform at Centre Pasteur du Cameroun.

AIMS Master's Supervision

AI for Electrical Inspections & License Plate Recognition

Academic supervision of an AIMS Cameroon master's internship (Romuald Ahomagnon, 2026). Two applied AI systems: a RAG-based electrical inspection reporting tool and a YOLOv10 license plate recognition system adapted for Cameroon.

AIMS Master's Supervision

HydroAs

Flood prediction and modeling research project. Winner of WWF INNO Student Challenge 2023 (€10,000 funding) and finalist at TU Delft Impact Contest 2021.

Award-winning

PI²4 – ESILV Recommendation Systems

Year 4 industrial innovation project supervision at ESILV engineering school, guiding students on building recommendation systems.

Supervision

Gaming NPCs & Climate Bias Detection

Open projects with Omdena: creating lifelike non-player characters with procedural tasks, and detecting bias in climate reporting across English and German news media.

Open Source

Publications

2025 ACL — Best Social Impact Paper Award

AfriMed-QA: A Pan-African, Multi-Specialty, Medical Question-Answering Benchmark Dataset.

Tobi Olatunji, Charles Nimo, ..., Foutse Yuehgoh, et al. — ACL 2025 Main Conference. arXiv
2025 NAACL — Outstanding Paper Award

IrokoBench: A New Benchmark for African Languages in the Age of Large Language Models.

David I. Adelani, Jessica Ojo, ..., Foutse Yuehgoh, et al. — NAACL 2025. ACL Anthology
2025 FAccT — Honorable Mention Best Paper

The World Wide Recipe: A community-centred framework for fine-grained data collection and regional bias operationalisation.

FAccT 2025. ACM DL
2025 Conference

The Human Labour of Data Work: Capturing Cultural Diversity through World Wide Dishes.

2025.
2024 Conference

AfriMTE and AfriCOMET: Enhancing COMET to Embrace Under-resourced African Languages.

Jiayi Wang, David I. Adelani, ..., Foutse Yuehgoh, et al. arXiv
2024 Conference

How to Recommend Multidimensional Data with a Multiplex Graph?

Foutse Yuehgoh, et al. — 16th Asian Conference on Intelligent Information and Database Systems (ACIIDS 2024). Link
2022 Conference

A Multiplex Network Framework Based Recommendation Systems for Technology Intelligence.

Foutse Yuehgoh, et al. — New Trends in Database and Information Systems (ADBIS 2022). Link
2017 Conference

Return of experience on the mean-shift clustering for heterogeneous architecture use case.

Christophe Cérin, Jean-Luc Gaudiot, Mustapha Lebbah, Foutse Yuehgoh — 2017 IEEE International Conference on Big Data. Link
2022 Workshop

A Technology Intelligence Recommendation System based on Multiplex Networks.

17th Women in Machine Learning Workshop (WiML), co-located with NeurIPS 2022, New Orleans, USA. Link · Also presented at MADICS Symposium (Lyon) and Deep Learning Indaba 2022 (Tunis).
2018 Workshop

Mean-Shift Clustering for Heterogeneous Architecture.

Deep Learning Indaba 2018, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Link

Community & Leadership

Deep Learning Indaba 2026 Chair

Chair of the Application & Selection Committee for Deep Learning Indaba 2026 in Nigeria — Africa's premier machine learning conference. Responsible for designing application forms, coordinating tester feedback, and leading the selection process.

IndabaX Cameroon Co-organizer

Co-organizer since 2020. Led the IndabaX Cameroon 2026 conference (May 12–14, Université de Ngaoundéré): committee updates, program schedule design, and speaker coordination.

KmerAI Founder

President & founder of KmerAI, a community dedicated to demystifying AI in Cameroon and increasing active participation of women and young people in STEM.

WiMLDS Yaoundé

Co-organizer of the Women in Machine Learning & Data Science Yaoundé chapter. Organizing workshops, talks, and mentoring events.

Black in AI & WiML at NeurIPS

Conference organizer for Black in AI and Women in Machine Learning workshops at NeurIPS since 2020. Contributing to diversity and representation in AI research.

Mentorship

Remote mentorship for Afev, AI Ghana, and AI Saturday Lagos (2021–2023). Co-founded WPSYG (Women Promoting Sciences to the Younger Generation) to encourage girls in STEM.

AI Music Creation

Exploring the creative intersection of AI and music. Creating worship and mmotivational songs and original music using AI tools, and sharing the journey on YouTube.

Awards & Grants

2025

Best Social Impact Paper Award — ACL 2025

AfriMed-QA: A Pan-African, Multi-Specialty, Medical Question-Answering Benchmark Dataset.

2025

Outstanding Paper Award — NAACL 2025

IrokoBench: A New Benchmark for African Languages in the Age of Large Language Models.

2025

Honorable Mention Best Paper — FAccT 2025

The World Wide Recipe: A community-centred framework for fine-grained data collection and regional bias operationalisation.

2024

Deep Learning Indaba 2024 Ideathon — Winner

FarmA: USSD-based agricultural advisory platform for rural communities in Kenya.

2023

WWF INNO Student Challenge — Winner

€10,000 funding and professional coaching for the HydroAs flood prediction project.

2021

TU Delft Impact Contest — Finalist

HydroAs flood prediction and modeling project.

2018–24

Travel Grants

WiML grant to NeurIPS 2022, Black in AI grants to NeurIPS 2018, 2019, 2022, and CVPR 2024.

2018

Excellence Scholarship — University of Paris Saclay

Masters admission scholarship for Information Processing & Data Exploitation.

2016

MasterCard Foundation Scholarship — AIMS

Masters admission at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Senegal.

2009

GCE Ordinary Levels Award

Best student in the Adamawa region, Cameroon. Awarded by Les Brasseries du Cameroun.

Education

2021 – 2024

Ph.D in Computer Science

CNAM Paris · Doctoral School SMI – Engineering Science
  • A Multiplex Graph-based Recommendation System for Multi-Criteria Profiles Enhancement. In partnership with De Vinci Research Center and Coexel.
2018 – 2019

MSc in Information Processing & Data Exploitation

University of Paris Saclay (UVSQ) · Faculty of Engineering
  • Thesis: Subjective Radio Quality Rating Through AI.
2016 – 2018

MSc in Mathematical Science

African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) · Mbour, Senegal
  • Thesis: Mean-shift Clustering for Heterogeneous Architecture. Grade: Distinction.

Open to Opportunities

I'm looking for roles where I can combine my deep AI expertise with product strategy and team leadership. I'm particularly drawn to positions such as:

Product Owner IA / Data & GenAI AI/ML Team Lead Chef de Projet IA AI Strategy & Governance Lead Senior Data Scientist AI Research Lead

I bring a rare blend: Ph.D-level technical depth in AI/ML/NLP, hands-on product delivery experience, the ability to translate complex AI into business value for non-technical teams, and a track record of leading initiatives across organizations and continents. Based in Toulon, open to remote and hybrid roles across France.

Get in touch →
"To every young girl stepping into the world of STEM: You belong here. Don't be afraid to take up space. Ask questions, even the ones you think might sound too simple. That's how discovery begins. You don't have to be perfect — you just have to keep going. And as you rise, don't forget to look back and lift others with you."
— Foutse Yuehgoh

When I'm Not Doing AI

🎵 Singing & AI Music 💃 Dancing 🏃‍♀️ Running 🎾 Tennis 🏓 Ping Pong 📚 Reading 🎬 Movies ✈️ Traveling