Mounir Hamdi is the founding Dean of the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to design and analysis of high-speed packet switching, which is the highest research distinction bestowed by IEEE.

As founding Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, Dr. Hamdi led the foundation of 15 graduate programs and 1 undergraduate program and all the associated research labs and activities. In particular, 6 of these programs are the first PhD programs in HBKU. Currently, the College has more than 350 students including 150 PhD students, and has already graduated MS and PhD students.

Before joining HBKU, he was Chair Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and the Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. 

He received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering - Computer Engineering minor (with distinction) from the University of Louisiana in 1985, and the MS and the PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh in 1987 and 1991, respectively.

He was a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology since 1991, where he was a founding member of the University. He became the Head and Chair Professor of the Department. Under his Headship tenure, his Department was ranked 13th in the world by QS World Ranking (2013) and 21st in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) in 2013. He was the Director of the Computer Engineering Program, Director of the Master of Science in Information Technology, and Director of the Computer Networking Research Lab. He was involved with HKUST administration such as the University Senate, University Council, and University Administration Committee. In 1999 to 2000 he held visiting professor positions at Stanford University, USA, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland as well as Honorary Professor in various Chinese Universities such Nanjing University and Chinese Southeast University. His general area of research is in high-speed wired/wireless networking in which he has published more than 350 research publications, received numerous research grants, and graduated more 50 MS/PhD students. In addition, he has frequently consulted for companies and governmental organizations in the USA, Europe and Asia. He is also a frequent keynote speaker in International Conferences and Forums on matters related to cutting-edge research and education.

Prof. Hamdi is/was on the Editorial Board of various prestigious journals and magazines including IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Communication Magazine, Computer Networks, Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, and Parallel Computing as well as a guest editor of IEEE Communications Magazine, guest editor-in-chief of two special issues of IEEE Journal on Selected Areas of Communications, and a guest editor of Optical Networks Magazine. He has chaired more than 20 international conferences and workshops including The IEEE International High Performance Switching and Routing Conference, the IEEE GLOBECOM/ICC Optical networking workshop, and the IEEE ICC High-speed Access Workshop, and has been on the program committees of more than 200 international conferences and workshops. He was the Chair of IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Transmissions, Access and Optical Systems, and Vice-Chair of the Optical Networking Technical Committee, as well as member of the ComSoc technical activities council. He received the best paper award at the IEEE International Conference on Communications in 2009 and the IEEE International Conference on Information and Networking in 1998. He also supervised the best PhD paper award amongst all universities in Hong Kong.

In addition to his commitment to research and professional service, he is also a dedicated teacher and renowned quality-assurance educator. He received the best 10 lecturers award (through university-wide student voting for all university faculty held once a year), the distinguished engineering teaching appreciation award from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and various grants targeted towards the improvement of teaching methodologies, delivery and technology. He is frequently involved in higher education quality assurance activities as well as engineering programs accreditation all over the world.

Dr. Georges Nemer is a Professor of genomics and translational biomedicine and the Associate Dean for Research at the College of Health and Life Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. With a PhD in Pharmacology from the Université de Montréal, Dr. Nemer has an extensive academic and research background, particularly in genomics and molecular genetics. Before his current role, he served as the Interim Dean of the College of Health and Life Sciences and led the Genomics and Translational Biomedicine division at HBKU.

Dr. Nemer's research is highly regarded, with numerous publications in prestigious journals. His work spans genetic determinants of diseases, including congenital heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, cardio-cutaneous diseases, and Vitamin D deficiency. He has been recognized with several awards, including the Paul Dudley White International Scholar Award and the Wayne G. Watson Award for Biologic or Experimental Research.

In addition to his research, Dr. Nemer has contributed significantly to academic administration and faculty mentoring. He has held pivotal roles at the American University of Beirut, where he directed the Molecular Core Facility and co-directed the Congenital Heart Disease Genetic Program. Dr. Nemer's commitment to advancing scientific knowledge and education is reflected in his numerous editorial activities and service on various academic and governmental committees.

Dr. Ozturk obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Economics, with a minor in Statistics, from Auburn University, following his completion of a Master of Arts in Applied Economics at Western Michigan University. He also holds an LLM in Law and Economics from Michigan State University.

Dr. Ozturk regularly teaches courses on topics such as economics for public policy, cost-benefit analysis, research methods, microeconomics, macroeconomics, statistics for social sciences, and econometrics. His research primarily focuses on international trade, economic development, and food and agriculture, showcasing a broad interest in these critical areas.

Throughout his career, Dr. Ozturk has been actively involved in numerous multidisciplinary projects of both national and international scope across Europe, North America, Turkey, and Qatar.

Hashim Moosavi is a Software Engineer in the Social Computing Group working on healthcare analytics projects. Prior to joining QCRI, he worked in Sidra Medicine, where he developed several enterprise-ready web and mobile applications like "10 Moons" maternity app & "Saffara" queuing platform for the hospital. Before that, he also created several mobile and wearable apps & frameworks at IBM Research India for enterprise that utilize Watson services.

Fahim Dalvi is a Software Engineer at QCRI. Dalvi’s research as part of the Arabic Language Technologies team is centered around the intersection of Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning, and he has worked on wide variety of problems in these fields, including machine translation, language modeling, and explainability in deep neural networks. He also spends his time converting research into practical applications, with a focus on scalable web applications, as well as mentoring and teaching deep learning at fall and summer schools.

Dr. Abdelkader Baggag is a Senior Scientist at Qatar Computing Research Institute and an Associate Professor in the ICT Division of the College of Science and Engineering, where he teaches Generative AI Foundations. Dr. Baggag is an expert in Machine Learning and holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota, USA. Before joining QCRI, he was at McGill University and then a tenured Associate Professor at Laval University in Canada.

Dr. Baggag worked at leading HPC research centers in the USA, e.g., CRI at Purdue, ICASE at NASA Langley Research Center in VA, and MSI in Minnesota. Dr. Baggag’s research is in AI and RL, focusing on multimodal LLMs. He has worked on AI and ML applications that include AI for wearable data analytics, traffic prediction and missing data imputation, and AI for resilient smart cities.

Mus'ab Husaini is a Senior Software Engineer at Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), with over 10 years’ industry experience in the design, architecture, and development of large and small-scale software projects. He is particularly interested in designing front-end applications and developing microservice-based architecture. His work in the industry has involved legal, healthcare, cybersecurity, and social media software systems.

Ummar Abbas is a Senior Software Engineer at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), with more than 15 years of experience in areas of software development, architecture and management. His particular interest lies in scientific research-oriented software development: machine/system control, algorithms, image processing and other software supporting high end machines such as healthcare modalities and microscopes. Most of his experience is derived from software development and leadership roles related to life-sciences and healthcare modalities. In the past four years, Abbas has developed a keen interest in the area of data science: deep learning and machine learning. He has since been engaged in this field either at work or through extra-curricular projects.

Dr. Heba H. Al-Siddiqi graduated from Cardiff University, UK in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences. She joined Qatar Research Leadership Programme (QRLP) in 2009. She trained at Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Boston (2010-2012). Dr. Al-Siddiqi received her Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) from the University of Oxford in 2018. Her project focused on studying the metabolism of stem cells (human induced-pluripotent stem cells) and their differentiated cardiomyocytes. Her research highlighted the importance of metabolic maturation in directed cardiac differentiation to generate an “adult-like” hiPSCs-derived cardiomyocytes.

Dr. Al-Siddiqi has joined QBRI in 2018 as a Scientist at the Diabetes Research Center. Dr. Al-Siddiqi’s current research focus is on stem cells and pancreatic cell differentiation and maturation.