Diana Hassan is a public health scholar with a focus on community health promotion and health policy. She has more than 15 years of experience supporting initiatives that respond to the health needs of diverse populations across the lifespan and advancing policies that promote equity.

Before joining HBKU, Diana worked at Qatar University, where she conducted community-based research and supported institutional and national health priorities. She built a strong teaching record through curriculum development and student mentorship. Earlier in her career in the United States, she gained practice-based experience as a health educator, working with government agencies and community organizations on programs that strengthened community capacity and supported local health efforts.

Diana’s current work aims to bridge research, policy, and practice through initiatives on WHO age-friendly cities and health-promoting universities, ensuring that findings translate into strategies that advance population health and inform policy development.
Diana has secured competitive grants from funders including the Qatar National Research Fund, QU grants, the USDA, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and the Allen Foundation.
 

Dr. Elbashir is a professor at the Chemical Engineering Department of the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU) since August 2025. He was the director of Texas A&M University's Gas and Fuels Research Center from 2015-2025 and a professor in the Chemical Engineering Program at Texas A&M University at Qatar since 2008 (adjunct from August 2025). He has extensive research and teaching experience from industry and academia (e.g., BASF R&D Catalysts, Engelhard and SABIC). His research focuses on designing advanced reactors, catalysts for chemical and environmental processes, and is specialized in designing novel systems in sustainable gas-to-liquid and gas-to-carbon material, including CO2 utilization and decarbonization. He has established several unique global research collaboration models between academia and industry. He holds several granted patents and hundreds of scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, technical industry reports, and others. He has been recognized by awards from Qatar Foundation, BASF Corp., Texas A&M University, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Shell, and others. Dr. Elbashir became a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering in August 2023 and was elected as a member of the Sudan National Academy of Sciences (SNAS) in 2022.

Hina Khalid is an assistant professor in the College of Public Policy (CPP) at Hamad bin Khalifa University. Before joining CPP, she worked as a researcher in the Child Well-Being Research Unit, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. She was also a lecturer at the School of Nursing and Health Studies, University of Washington Bothell, and an assistant professor at the Information Technology University in Pakistan.

Her research focuses on improving health outcomes with a special interest in how government policies, institutions, and politics mediate these outcomes. She has authored 15 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, Health Systems, and The Lancet, among others.

Her research has been supported by grants from the World Health Organization, World Bank, Shahid Hussain Foundation, and the International Growth Centre.

Dr Hanan Qasem obtained her MSc in Biochemistry from King Saud University, KSA, and completed her PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar, in 2025. 

Her doctoral research explored the therapeutic potential of targeting the cancer testis antigen Lactate Dehydrogenase C (LDHC) in triple-negative breast cancer. Her work identified key molecular mechanisms by which LDHC drives tumor progression, immune evasion, and chemoresistance. She validated a novel cell-penetrating peptide-based therapeutic approach to target LDHC in a xenograft zebrafish model, resulting in a significantly reduced tumor burden. Her research has contributed to advancing our understanding of TNBC biology and provides a foundation for novel therapeutic strategies to overcome chemotherapy resistance. 

In 2025, Dr Qasem joined Dr Julie Decock’s team at QBRI as a Postdoctoral Researcher, where she investigates the role and clinical relevance of cancer testis antigens in pediatric oncology. She is passionate about translating fundamental scientific discoveries into clinical applications to improve treatment outcomes for cancer patients.
 

Ola Al-anani is a project analyst at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). She coordinates the MA and PhD programs, organizes academic events, and streamlines communications between students, faculty, and university departments. For the MA program, she conducts research activities tied to ongoing research projects and maintains project documentation and timelines. As secretary to the Digital Sīrah Project, her scope centers on internal communications, meeting organization, archive management, and event planning. Her M.Ed. from SUNY Buffalo State strengthens her planning and problem-solving skills. 

Dr. Mustafa Jarrar is a Full professor of Artificial Intelligence and the Director of SinaLab for Computational Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence. He is the founder and former director of the PhD Program in Computer Science at Birzeit University. He was a Fulbright visiting professor at the University at Buffalo in the USA (2016-2017), a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Cyprus (2007-2009), and a senior research scientist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (1999-2007), where he completed his Masters (2000) and PhD (early 2005). Jarrar has won several prestigious awards, including the Shoman Arab Researchers Award in Technology, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Award for the Arabic Language, and the Google Faculty Research Award. He has published over 100 articles in the areas of Natural Language Processing, Ontology Engineering, the Semantic Web, and Graph Databases. Jarrar has also chaired 30 international conferences, a PC member of 150+ journals and conferences, coordinator/manager of 30 large EU projects, a full member of the IFIP2.6 on Database Semantics, the IFIP2.12 on Web Semantics, and the UN ESCWA Technology Centre Board of Governors, among others.

Dr. Fahad Khan is an academic, researcher, and clinical psychologist specializing in the integration of faith and mental wellness through the field of Islamic psychology. His professional work is dedicated to advancing mental health within Muslim communities. He has served as the deputy director at Khalil Center, the largest provider of Muslim mental health services in the West, where he supervised clinical and research work.

Dr. Khan’s background includes teaching at various academic institutions in the United States. He is a fellow of the International Association of Islamic Psychology (IAIP) and actively contributes to the field by serving on the editorial boards of several peer-reviewed journals. His work has been recognized with multiple awards. He is a recipient of the American Psychological Foundation’s 2025 Division 29 Early Career Award, and the American Psychological Association's (APA) 2021 Early Career Psychologist Champion and 2020 Early Career Achievement Awards. He has served on numerous committees and divisions of the APA, most recently representing the organization at the United Nations in 2024.

Dr. Zhihe Lu is an Assistant Professor at the College of Science and Engineering. His research focuses on machine learning and computer vision. He has published 19 technical papers in leading venues, including CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, NeurIPS, ICML, ACM MM, and top journals such as IEEE TIP and PR.

He was a Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, working with Prof. Xinchao Wang, before joining HBKU. He finished his PhD at the University of Surrey under the supervision of Prof. Tao Xiang and Prof. Yi-Zhe Song. He also completed his master's degree at the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, supervised by Prof. Ran He and Prof. Zhaoxiang Zhang.

He was also fortunate to work and collaborate with Dr. Xiatian Zhu, Prof. Timothy Hospedales, Dr. Da Li, Dr. Sen He, and Prof. Shuicheng Yan.

Dr. Sabri Boughorbel is a Lead Scientist at Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University where he leads the LLM Modeling Team in Arabic Language Technology. Dr. Boughorbel holds a PhD in Machine Learning from the University of Paris Saclay. With over 15 years of experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence, he has made significant contributions to healthcare analytics, language modeling, and computer vision. Before his current role, he served as e-Health Lead at QCRI and held various scientific positions at Sidra Medicine and Philips Research. His expertise spans pretraining large language models, healthcare applications of AI, and the development of machine learning techniques.