Hi, I'm Elyas!

Engineer and filmmaker working at the intersection of AI, science, and story. Based in New York City.

About

I'm a founding engineer at Pangram Labs, where we build state-of-the-art AI detection systems. Before that, I studied Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland and interned on the Curiosity Mars Rover team at NASA-JPL.

Outside of engineering, I make films: short science films that have screened across Europe and the Americas. I love long walks in the city, birding, and the ocean.

Engineering

Founding Engineer · Pangram Labs
2023 to Present
Second engineer at a startup building AI detection systems trusted by educators and publishers.
- Built the model-serving API and maintain our interpretability research path.
- Helped ship humanizer robustness, AI-phrase detection, LMS integrations, and mixed human/AI segmentation
- Presented research on humanizer detection at a workshop in Abu Dhabi
Software Intern, Curiosity Rover · NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Summer
Worked on tooling for the Mars Science Laboratory team supporting Curiosity's ongoing mission.

Writing & research

Seeing in Pangram Space
E. Masrour, K. Thai, B. Emi · Pangram Labs · 2026
DAMAGE: Detecting Adversarially Modified AI-Generated Text
E. Masrour, B. N. Emi, M. Spero · GenAIDetect Workshop · 2025
EditLens: Quantifying the Extent of AI Editing in Text
K. Thai, E. Masrour, B. Emi, M. Iyyer · arXiv:2510.03154 · 2025
Pangram at GenAI Detection Task 3: An Active Learning Approach to Machine-Generated Text Detection
B. N. Emi, E. Masrour, M. Spero · GenAIDetect Workshop · 2025

Films

Hallucinations
Writer, Director
A grieving landscape painter pays a company to create an AI voice model of his dead lover and becomes increasingly enthralled by her stunning descriptions of the cyber-afterlife.
Flatland
Creative-in-Residence, Director, Writer
A collaborative short built with UMD's Design Cultures & Creativity program. Storyboarding, animation, and an original score.
The Artificial Revolution
Director, Editor
A documentary-style exploration of AI's arrival in art, music, and film.
Best Editing, Maryland Filmmakers
Night of the Crabs
Director, Writer
A citizen-science led creature study that pulled me deeper into ocean storytelling.
International Ocean Film Festival · Bristol Science Film Festival · Tomorrow Unlocked Film Festival

In the news

Employee Spotlight: Meet Elyas, Pangram Founding Engineer— Pangram Blog
DCC Breaks Into New Dimension with Flatland, a Collaborative Film Created by Program's First Creative-in-Residence— UMD Honors
DCC and Elyas Masrour launch Creative-in-Residence Program— UMD DCC

Side projects

Cavalry Film Collective
Community · Founder
A network of young filmmakers in NYC who meet once a week to develop, produce, and finish films.
StudyCCS
Study platform · Cofounder
Helping medical residents prepare for the Computer-based Case Simulations on the USMLE Step 3 examination.

Contact

Email emasrour@gmail.com, or find me on GitHub, X, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, IMDb, and Scholar.