Dr. Abdulkarem Amhamed is a Senior Scientist, CO2 Cluster Program Director, and a Chartered Chemical Engineer by training with 22 years of experience in the oil and gas industry sector including Industry 4.0 and sustainable processes design. Dr. Amhamed earned his PhD and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from Bradford University, UK, and from University of Salford, UK, respectively. He introduced the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) research and technology development to QEERI. 

Dr Amhamed has previously held many senior research and management positions, including serving as Strategic Research Project Lead between QP and UOP Honeywell (7.5 Million USD) and Engineering & Projects General Manager-ESSO, Libya. He has a solid experience in CO2 capturing and utilization, LNG, NGL and sour gas purification. His research and industrial experience has attracted more than $10M in external funding. Recently, he obtained the highest grant ($6,4 Million) in HBKU/Qatar Foundation (CO2 Cluster Project). As program director for the grant, he leads more than 29 researchers including PIs, students, and postdoctoral researchers. Dr. Amhamed was an adjunct professor in Benghazi University, where he taught several undergraduate and graduate courses such as chemical reactions, mass transfer, CCUS course, plant process design, and gas sweetening processes.

Dr. Paul Grimshaw is an Associate Professor in Exercise Science at the College of Health and Life Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Following a PhD in biomedical engineering in 1987 from the University of Salford, UK, he has lectured in biomechanics, anatomy, and research methods for the past 36 years. He has worked at three Universities in the UK (Brunel, Edinburgh, and Exeter) and two in Australia (School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia and School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Adelaide (UoA)) before joining HBKU in 2021. He has also worked at Halmstad University in Sweden.

His research interests include injury prevention/mechanism of injury and sports performance/technology in golf and athletics; low back pain; gait analysis in children and adults and quantitative assessment of human knee instability. At the University of Adelaide, he was the School's Director of Research (2015), Director of Learning and Teaching (2017), Director of Engagement (2018-2020), and the Program Coordinator for the Bachelor of Engineering (mechanical and sports) 4-year undergraduate professional degree (2009-2018), which was the first of its kind within Australia (established in 2008). To date, he has been involved in the authorship of 141 refereed research articles and has successfully graduated with 15 higher degrees by research students (PhD and MS by research).

Dr. Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar is an Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He holds a PhD (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) from the University of Alberta, where he was awarded The Bacchus Graduate Research Prize for scholarly excellence in international and multicultural education. He was also awarded the University of Alberta President’s Doctoral Prize of Distinction, among other awards such as the JDH McFetridge Graduate Scholarship and the Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize for outstanding accomplishment and potential in pursuit of new knowledge. He has a master’s degree from the University of Baghdad. He also received a master’s degree from California State University in Humanities. His third master's degree was from Lakehead University in English literature, Canada. Dr. Abdul-Jabbar held a postdoctoral fellowship (also funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) at the University of Calgary. His research considers how intercultural communication resonates with educational practices; it explores the convergences of seemingly differing cultures to infuse intercultural dialogue into educational discourse. Prior to joining Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), he was a faculty member at Yorkville University and an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is the author of Negotiating Diasporic Identity in Arab-Canadian Students - Double Consciousness, Belonging, and Radicalization (Palgrave, 2019) and Medieval Muslim Philosophers and Intercultural Communication: Towards a Dialogical Paradigm in Education (Routledge, 2023).

Dr. Atef Zekri graduated with a PhD in Physics in 2017 from the University of Oldenburg (Germany). Before joining QEERI as a Post-Doc in April 2018 and then as a Scientist in July 2019, he worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Energy and Semiconductor research group within the Institute of Physics in the University of Oldenburg (Germany). Atef obtained his Master of Science in Materials Science from Saarland University (Germany) and his Bachelor of Science from Saarland University (Germany) as well as a Bachelor of Engineering from EEIGM (École Européenne D'ingénieurs en Génie des Matériaux, France). His current research interests focus on state-of-the-art electron microscopy across a wide range of materials such as the Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), and Focused Ion Beam (FIB).

Dr. Hibah Shaath obtained her Bachelor of Science (Hons) and Master of Research (MRes) degrees in Genetics and Genetic Medicine from the University of Manchester. The focus of her MRes was the biomolecular characterization of Keratoconic corneas associated with transplant rejection. In 2013 she moved to Qatar and joined Shafallah Medical Genetics Center, where her main focus was identifying candidate genes with novel mutations associated with both Mendelian hereditary disease and ASD, through homozygosity mapping and family screening, presented in several posters at ARC’13 and ARC’14. In 2014, Dr. Shaath joined QBRI to work as a Research Associate in the Translational Oncology Research Center. In 2022, she completed her PhD in Biomedical and Biological Sciences from the College of Health and Life Sciences (CHLS) at HBKU under the supervision of Dr. Nehad Alajez. Her research focus is on the transcriptional landscape of colorectal cancer and breast cancer for novel biomarker discovery and targeted therapy. Her research was selected for oral presentation at the first Advances in Precision Medicine (APM 2021) conference at HBKU, and in 2022; her poster was selected for Best Poster Award in the student category as the third place winner at HBKU Research Day.

Bakhita Rashid Meqbel is a Research Fellow at the Diabetes Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She received her bachelor's degree in biomedical science and masters in master’s in biomedical science with a major in health management from Qatar University. She got her PhD in biological and biomedical sciences from Hamad Bin Khalifa University in 2022.

She has worked as a Senior Lab Technologist for 10 years at Hamad Medical Corporation in the Department of Medicine and Pathology - Microbiology lab. She then pursued PhD degree working in the cancer field. After obtaining her PhD, she joined QBRI as a Senior Research Associate and was later promoted to Research Fellow.

Dr. Omar Albagha received his PhD scholarship to investigate genetic susceptibility to osteoporosis at the University of Aberdeen. After completing his PhD degree in 2001, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher until 2002, when he was appointed as an Arthritis Research UK lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Genetics of Bone disease at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK. In 2005, he moved to the University of Edinburgh as a Principal Investigator/Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine (CGEM). In 2014, he was appointed the Associate Director of the Paget’s Association Centre of Excellence, Edinburgh.

In early 2017, Dr. Albagha joined Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) as a Principal Investigator at the Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI), and in 2019 he joined the College of Health and Life Sciences at HBKU as a Professor of Genomic and Precision Medicine. His current research focuses on Genomic Medicine, aiming at understanding the genetic determinants of complex diseases with emphasis on Type 2 Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. He has active collaborations with Qatar Genome Project to investigate genetics of disease-related traits in Qatar. He has published in high impact journals (Nature Genetics, JAMA, Cell Reports) and his work has been featured in news outlets such as the BBC and other international media. Dr. Albagha has received many awards from international organizations, including the European Calcified Tissue Society (ECTS) and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). He has obtained multiple research grants totaling over US$ 10 million, including the highly prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator fellowship.

Sultan Barakat is a Professor at the College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He is a renowned scholar in the study of war-torn societies and their recovery. He has supervised over 20 PhDs in politics and post-war recovery and graduated a generation of MA peacebuilders and reconstruction specialists. Professor Barakat founded and directed the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute from 2016 to 2022 and previously led the post-war reconstruction unit at the University of York from 1993 to 2019.

He has published extensively, with recent books including Russia’s Approach to Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Shelter and Reconstruction after War and Disaster, both released in 2023. With over 30 years of experience, Barakat has worked on conflict management, humanitarian response, and post-conflict recovery, influencing global practices through his publications and advisory roles with organizations like the UN, World Bank, and EU.

He has led evaluations and peace initiatives in various conflict zones, demonstrating his commitment to stability and resilience. His involvement in mediation efforts in Yemen, Syria, and Afghanistan highlights his contributions to peacebuilding. Barakat continues to shape discourse in conflict resolution, earning recognition as a leading authority in the field.

Dr. Amir Abdallah has academic and industrial experience in the development of solar cell efficiency and PV module technology. This includes fabrication of silicon solar cells, e.g., various process optimization and characterization to improve solar cell efficiency and PV module fabrication. At QEERI, Dr. Abdallah has contributed to the establishment and accreditation of the PV reliability lab. Further, as Lead Principle Investigator (LPI), he has secured two external funds with international collaborators - first project is to improve passivated contacts for PERC solar cell, and the second project is on technology development for PV module for desert climate.

Dr. Ayman Samara joined Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) Core Labs in 2015 as a Senior Scientist to help establish the optical microscopy lab, profilometry lab, thermal analysis lab, and thin film characterization. Dr. Samara is currently leading all analysis activities and manages the operations of these labs, supporting research at HBKU, local and global companies and educational institutes in Qatar. He obtained his MSc and PhD degrees in Optical Engineering and Science from the Center for Optoelectronics and Optical Communications at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte, and his BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Jordan. Dr. Samara started his career in the semiconductor industry in 2005 at Intel Corporation’s D1D Fab in Portland, OR, USA, as a Senior Process Development Engineer leading the development of metrology and defect detection capabilities for the Lithography process supporting manufacturing of the 65-32nm technology nodes. In 2009, Dr. Samara served as the Manager of the Dimensional Metrology and Defect Analysis facility in the assembly materials characterization division of Intel Corporation. Prior to Joining HBKU, Dr. Samara served as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the American University of the Middle East in Kuwait, where he established the Optics Engineering lab and taught multiple EE courses.