Dr. Ahmad Sami Abushaikha is a founding faculty member. He received his BS in Petroleum Engineering and his BA in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. In 2006, he received his MS in Reservoir Geosciences and Engineering from "Institut Français du Pétrole". From 2007 to 2009, he worked at TOTAL Research Centre at Pau, France and at Qatar Petroleum. In 2013, he received his PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College London. From 2015 to 2017, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University specializing in discretization schemes for fluid flow in porous media.

Dr. Julie Decock received her Master of Science (MSc) in Biomedical Sciences from the Free University of Brussels (VUB, Belgium) and completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Medical Sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven, KU Leuven, Belgium. Her doctoral research focused on the cancer degradome, the repertoire of proteases in the tumor microenvironment that contribute to shaping the extracellular environment and modulating pericellular signaling, thereby affecting tumor progression and clinical outcome.

She joined QBRI in 2013 and established a research program in the areas of tumor antigen discovery and tumor immunity, two key research areas that can help accelerate breast cancer research and advance the development of new treatments. Currently, her research focuses on cancer testis antigens, a group of tumor associated antigens that play pivotal roles in tumorigenesis and progression, and display high tumor specificity with minimal on- and off-target side effects. Her efforts have demonstrated that cancer testis antigens not only play important roles in multiple cancer hallmarks but can also serve as tumor specific molecular targets and modulators of anti-tumor immunity, offering diverse opportunities for anti-cancer targeting.

Dr. Marwa Qaraqe is an Associate Professor in the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She is also the co-founder of the Autism Sensing Center (A-Sense) of the College of Science and Engineering at HBKU. She received her BSc in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University at Qatar with summa cum laude. Dr. Qaraqe earned her MSc and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University in College Station, United States.

Dr. Qaraqe serves as a TPC and reviewer to several prestigious technical journals and conferences, including the IEEE Wireless Communication and Networking Conference (WCNC) and IEEE Wireless Communication Magazine. She is also a member of the IEEE Communication Society (ComSoc) board for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Region.

She has received several awards throughout her academic career, including the Best Paper Award in the 2022 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), the Richard E. Wing Award for Excellence in Research, and first place in the Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum in the Health and Biomedical Sector. She has also been awarded more than 2 million US dollars as lead principal investigator in competitive research grants for her research initiatives.

Dr. Dena Al-Thani is an Associate Professor, Co-Founder of the A-sense Center of Excellence, and Head of the Information and Computing Technology Division at the College of Science and Engineering. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Queen Mary University of London. Her research interests include accessibility, inclusive design, and eHealth.

Dr. Al-Thani actively publishes in top journals and presents at international conferences. Her research on inclusion aims to make a global impact. She is a member of the WHO's technical advisory group on assistive technology and the Arab ICT Accessibility Expert Group, led by Mada.

Dr. Halima Bensmail is a Principal Scientist at the Qatar Computing Research Institute, a Professor at the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and a visiting full Professor at Texas A&M University at Qatar. She received her PhD from Pierre & Marie Currie University in Paris, France, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington and FHCRC in Seattle, Washington, USA. Halima was an assistant and associate professor at the University of Tennessee and the Virginia Medical School before joining Qatar Foundation. Halima's expertise lies in the frontiers of machine learning, bioinformatics, and computational biology, and she is also a statistician and a biostatistician.

She has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals such as Nature Communications, Nucleic Acids Research, Genome Research, Briefings in Bioinformatics, Scientific Reports, and Bioinformatics. She has also earned multiple research awards taught courses in Qatar, the US, and France, and mentored many summer interns, and master's and PhD students. Halima has been the principal investigator and co-investigator on various research grants, and she is currently a member of a $2 million newly founded center provided by the USDA grant agency to the obesity center at Texas Tech. Halima has worked as a reviewer for the NIH and NSF, and she is a board member of the Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technology Foundation in Davos and an AdCom representative of IEEE EMBs in MENA.

Dr. Muhammad Modassir Ali is Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and Senior Researcher at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). He received his BA (Hons.) in Usuluddin and his MA and PhD in Comparative Religion from the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI). His teaching and research focus on comparative religion, particularly Christianity and Eastern religions, Qur’anic civilizations, Sīrah studies, and the intellectual history of the Indian subcontinent. Before joining CIS‑HBKU in 2015, he taught and held leadership roles at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) and Qatar University. Recent activity includes a peer‑reviewed article on medieval Muslim youth culture (Islamic Studies, 2025) and a chapter in Mercy and Grace: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (Georgetown University Press, 2025). He currently leads or contributes to projects on medieval Muslim culture, Islamic education in colonial India, and translations of classical works in Islamic education. He is a two‑time Fulbright scholar (UCSB 2003; UIUC 2008).

Dr. Mohammed Ghaly is Professor of Islam and Biomedical Ethics and Head of the Research Center for Islamic Legislation & Ethics (CILE) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar. He holds a BA from Al-Azhar University and both an MA and a PhD in Islamic Studies from Leiden University, where he was a faculty member from 2007 to 2013.

Dr. Ghaly’s leadership roles include serving as founding editor-in-chief of the Scopus-indexed Journal of Islamic Ethics and as Conference Chair for the 17th World Congress of Bioethics, the first edition ever held in the Middle East. He also chaired the founding committee for the MA program in Applied Islamic Ethics at HBKU.

His research explores the critical intersection of Islamic ethics with biomedical sciences and artificial intelligence (AI). He is the author of two monographs, Islam and Disability (2009) and Islamic Ethics and Incidental Findings (2024). He has also edited several volumes on key bioethical issues such as genomics and end-of-life care ethics. His work is further disseminated through numerous peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals.

Dr. Ghaly has led several major research projects, most recently focusing on “Transforming Islamic Studies in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence.”

Dr. Mohammad Mahmoud El Gammal is a Professor of Comparative Fiqh at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar. He holds a PhD in Comparative Fiqh from Al-Azhar University (2005, with distinction and recommendation for publication). His academic career spans over two decades, including professorships at Al-Azhar University and international engagements across Asia and Africa. He has taught over 50 courses, supervised more than 40 master’s theses, and participated in high-level curriculum development and international training.

Dr. El Gammal also serves as an expert member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (مجمع الفقه الإسلامي الدولي), where he contributes to scholarly deliberations on contemporary issues facing Muslim societies worldwide. His research covers Islamic jurisprudence, legal maxims, Islamic finance, and education. He is a prolific contributor to Arabic academic publications, with a strong record in academic arbitration and policy-relevant Islamic scholarship.

Dr. M. Evren Tok is the Associate Dean of Community Engagement and Associate Professor at the College of Public Policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Dr. Tok is also the regional coordinator for the Executive Master’s Program (Development Policies and Practices) jointly offered by the Graduate Institute of Geneva and Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He is the co-editor of Policy Making in a Transformative State: The Case of Qatar, published by Palgrave MacMillan, in 2016. His recent publications “Global Governance and Muslim Organizations” were published by Palgrave MacMillan and Innovating South-South Cooperation by the University of Ottawa Press in 2020. He is the director of a QNRF-funded cluster (2021-2026) entitled “SDG Education and Global Citizenship in Qatar”. He has been the Lead Project Investigator for the Qatar National Research Fund Priority Program for 3 years on “Localizing Entrepreneurship Education in Qatar”. He is the founder of the maker space entitled Maker Majlis: Islam in a Global World, which received the Qatar Sustainability Award under Best University Initiative in 2020 and the OIC Shaikh Hasina Award of Best Innovative Idea in 2022. Dr. Tok also received the Best Research Project Award from HBKU in 2022.