Dorde Popovic received his BSc degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, in 2022. He received the Andrew Carnegie Scholar Award at Carnegie Mellon University.

Before joining QCRI, Dorde’s research focused on federated learning and edge computing. His senior thesis was the runner-up for the Allen Newell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research at Carnegie Mellon University. It also won second place for the Best Project Award at the Meeting of the Minds Research Symposium.

Currently, his research projects focus on Trojan backdoor attacks and defenses in deep learning. Alongside his collaborators, Dorde developed a detection technique for these attacks that won second place and received the data-efficiency award in the Trojan Detection Challenge at NeurIPS 2022.

Dr. Majd Hawasly is a scientist at the Arabic Language Technologies group at Qatar Computing Research Institute. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2014 in a topic at the intersection of robotics and machine learning. He then joined Five AI, a UK-based autonomous driving startup, where he eventually became a lead research scientist at the applied research team in motion planning and prediction. His research interest lies in developing robust and intelligent AI systems that continually learn and adapt.

Deborah Giustini holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Manchester. Before joining HBKU, she was a lecturer and postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven (where she remains a research fellow in Interpreting Studies), lecturer and teaching assistant at the School of Social Sciences and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute of the University of Manchester, and a research fellow in Sociology at Higher School of Economics. She has held research visiting positions at the Warwick Business School, at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Sophia University (Japan).

Her research takes a sociologically-informed perspective on labour processes and digitalization in knowledge-intensive sectors, such as the language industry, and practices of intercultural communication in organizations. Deborah has recognized international expertise in practice theory, and is a member of the Practice Theory Consortium at Lancaster University.

Deborah’s expertise is also built on her experience as a language specialist accredited to the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and with international think tanks including the WBG’s Macroeconomic Policy Working Group and the Economic Change Unit. She is an active member of the European Sociological Association, the British Sociological Association, the British Universities Industrial Relations Association, and the European Group for Organizational Studies.

Dr. Mahmoud Alhirthani is an Assistant Professor of Translation and Intercultural Communication and an award-winning translator with over twenty-five years of extensive experience in the field. His career encompasses teaching translation, conducting research on translation and intercultural communication, and translating from English into Arabic.

He has published numerous refereed research papers and books in renowned and award-winning cultural venues both within and beyond the Arab world. As a translation educator and consultant, Dr. Alhirthani has taught a wide range of graduate-level courses, including literary translation, media translation, and discourse and communication analysis. He also has substantial experience in academic administration, leading study teams and teaching staff, organizing workshops, and serving on conference committees. His expertise extends to designing courses and programs for undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Alhirthani has supervised and refereed numerous postgraduate theses in translation and intercultural studies at both local and international institutions. His exceptional work as a translator earned him the prestigious Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding for his Arabic translation of Brownlie’s Principles of Public International Law, a monumental work comprising 1,328 pages.

Dr. Maria Jimenez-Andres has extensive teaching experience in the fields of translation, interpreting and languages in the UK, Spain and the UAE. As a translator and interpreter, Dr. Maria has engaged in various roles at institutions such as the Bolivarian Embassy of Venezuela and Ipsos Mori in the United Kingdom.

Dr. Maria has a degree in Translation and Interpreting, an MA in Higher Education, and a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies. Her dissertation was on communication and language management in organizations supporting refugees. Her commitment to this work goes beyond academia. She is active in outreach and has carried out a number of research and non-research projects with NGOs working with refugee and migrant communities in Europe and the Middle East. More recently, she has produced a documentary, Tempo, on the lives of refugee musicians.

Dr. Saleh obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Qatar University in 2014. She later joined the Ardehali Laboratory as a visiting scientist at David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). She participated in the characterization of cardiovascular progenitor cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells. Dr. Saleh then joined Dr. Apil Pyle Laboratory as a Graduate Student Researcher; she investigated how Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy disease severity, in mouse models, impacts the systemic delivery of human skeletal muscle progenitor cells. She obtained her PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology from UCLA in 2022. 

Professor Martin Steinhoff is a Professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He is also the Chairman of the Department of Dermatology and Venereology, Director of the Dermatology Institute, and Director of the Translational Research Institute (TRI) at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC). He is also a Full Professor at Weill Cornell Medical College New York, USA, Weill-Cornell Medicine-Qatar, and Qatar University. He also holds the position of residency program director for dermatology at HMC.

Professor Steinhoff studied medicine and human biology in Germany, where he received his MD, M.Sc., and PhD from the University of Marburg. After his residency in Dermatology/Venereology, he became an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the University of Muenster in 2002, promoted from assistant to full professor in 6 years.

He holds board certificates in Dermatology, Venereology, Phlebology and Allergy. His clinical fields of interest are inflammatory skin diseases, translational medicine, and -omics technologies. Prof. Steinhoff is an established physician-scientist with a long-standing basic and clinical research background. His group has discovered several mechanisms that are now the basis for new therapies for skin diseases. He is the author of the most relevant textbooks for Dermatology on Skin Inflammation and Allergy.

For his research, Prof Steinhoff received several prestigious international research awards worldwide. He was a member of the board of directors of the European Society of Dermatology Research (ESDR) and an honorary member of several Societies for Dermatology. According to a publication in 2023, he was considered among the Top 1% of dermatologists worldwide.

Umm-Kulthum is an early career researcher with experience in genomics, metagenomics, biomedical research and metabolomics. She spent most of her life in Qatar where she also graduated with research honours from Carnegie Mellon University located at the prestigious Education City. Her postgraduate experience involved several biomedical research projects including metabolomics of Alzheimer’s disease and liver diseases at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in the UK. Her PhD research with Hamad Bin Khalifa University was a combination of clinical and genomics research, looking into the genetics underlying rare growth disorders in paediatric patients recruited from a hospital in Qatar. Currently, Umm-Kulthum is working as a post-doctoral researcher with Professor Omar Albagha where she is involved in numerous Genome-Wide Association Studies projects which utilize the Qatar Genome Programme data to investigate various traits.

Luigia is an employment lawyer and policy maker with more than 25 years of exponential experience in labor laws, conciliation and adjudication of employment disputes, leadership and organizational behavior, across different countries and legal systems (common and civil law jurisdictions).

She holds a Master Degree in Law, a Post-Degree Master in Human Resources and Communication, a Women in Leadership Executive Program with London Business School and is a qualified conciliator and mediator of labor disputes certified by the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ITCILO) and trained by Harvard Law School – Program on Negotiation (PON).

She has established the first administrative employment dispute resolution center in the Middle East operating under the ILO guidelines and is also a certified ITCILO Participatory Gender Audit (PGA) Facilitator, specialized in gender and organizational change.

Policy maker and advocate for justice, Luigia has designed innovative legislation and policies with particular focus on gender equality, decent work, harassment and violence in the workplace, justice and partnerships - UN SDGs 5, 8, 16 and 17 and is also a member of the WHO working group of the World of Work Dialogue.

Dr. Esmat Zaidan is an Associate Professor at the College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She has 22 years of experience in academic institutions and international organizations like the World Bank, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She has spent 13 years in academia, holding senior roles in administration, teaching, and research.

Her experience includes strategic planning, academic accreditation, and ranking, curriculum design and restructuring, the conceptualization of new academic initiatives, scientific research and evaluation, partnerships with stakeholders, as well as team leadership and capacity building. She is a strong advocate for excellence in teaching and research, teamwork and collaborative approaches, and the faculty's role in societal progress. 

Her research primarily focuses on sustainable development policy and planning with an emphasis on sustainable urbanism and the complex interaction between humans and built environments. Her research portfolio extensively covers urban resilience and sustainability policies. 

Dr. Esmat Zaidan’s approach is interdisciplinary, addressing dynamic models of socioeconomic and environmental systems to create simulations and predictive models to enhance understanding and forecasting of the complex interplays between urban and natural environments. This includes the policy pathway for energy-efficient buildings, sustainable, resilient, smart, and people-centric urban areas, as well as impacts of technological change in urban life including smart cities and net-zero carbon communities.