Dr. Reem Ali is a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Health and Life Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She received her PhD degree in Oncology from the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.

Dr. Reem completed her first postdoctoral fellowship at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, where she continued her work on identifying biomarkers for PARP inhibitor resistance in endometrial cancers. She also worked on targeting the base excision repair pathway in breast and ovarian cancers. She developed an interest in PARP inhibitors and studied the mechanisms of resistance to this first FDA-approved DNA repair inhibitor in humans.

Dr. Eyad Ahmad Masad currently serves as the Vice President for Research at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, overseeing the continued growth of HBKU’s research ecosystem. Prior to joining HBKU as a Professor at the College of Science and Engineering, he spent 20 years at Texas A&M University and the branch campus in Qatar, where he held key leadership roles. Dr. Masad contributed to establishing the Qatar Foundation as a hub of research excellence. He is a distinguished member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dr. Masad is recognized globally for his work in multi-scale characterization and modeling of infrastructure materials. Dr. Masad served in various leadership roles in professional organizations such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Transportation Research Board (TRB), and the Academy of Pavement Science and Engineering (APSE).

Dr. Masad is on the editorial boards of many international journals. He is the recipient of several national and international awards in recognition of his leadership, academic, and research achievements, such as the Francis C. Turner Award (2022) from the Transportation and Development Institute of ASCE, the Monismith Lecture Award (2022) from the Geo-Institute of ASCE, and the James Laurie Prize (2019) from ASCE.

Dr. Sami El-Borgi is a Professor of mechanical engineering at the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. His field of research spans areas of structural health monitoring, continuum mechanics, fracture and contact mechanics, nonlinear vibration, finite element analysis, metamaterials, and smart manufacturing. He has published around 120 papers in high-impact journals in addition to one US patent. Over the last two decades, he has collaborated with well-known and reputable scholars in the fields of nonlinear vibration, fracture mechanics, contact mechanics, and finite element analysis.

Professor El-Borgi has been awarded numerous research grants with funding provided by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education, the Qatar National Research Fund, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. State Department, and the European Commission. In collaboration with Virginia Tech in 2003, he introduced a Master’s program in Computational Mechanics and a PhD program in Applied Mechanics at Tunisia Polytechnic School, University of Carthage, Tunisia. Prof. El-Borgi also serves as a reviewer for more than 60 international journals and is a member of the editorial board of a few engineering journals. In recognition of his services to the higher education sector, the Republic of Tunisia awarded him the Presidential Order of Merit of Education in 2008.

Dr. Mohammed R. Shaker is a Scientist at the Neurological Disorders Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI) at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He earned his PhD in Neuroscience from Korea University, Seoul, in 2017, and was subsequently awarded the prestigious Brain Korea 21 Plus Fellowship. He then joined the Australian Institute for Bioengineering & Nanotechnology (AIBN) at The University of Queensland, where he advanced organoid models for the study of human brain and spinal cord development.

Dr. Shaker’s research integrates patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with organoid platforms, focusing on neurological disorders, e.g. white matter diseases and neural tube defects. His work has garnered multiple national and international accolades, such as fellowships from the Children’s Hospital Foundation and the European Leukodystrophy Association. Dr. Shaker continues to explore innovative 3D culture systems and computational approaches to accelerate breakthroughs in neuroregeneration and disease modeling. His pioneering research remains at the forefront of precision medicine and translational neuroscience.

Dr. Jasni earned her BSc and MSc in General Biotechnology from the University of Calicut, India. She completed her PhD in Genomics and Precision Medicine from Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar, under the supervision of Dr. Ayman Al Haj Zen. During her PhD, she characterized the functions of coronary artery disease GWAS gene candidates in the human aortic smooth muscle cell phenotype switching model of atherosclerosis.

In 2024, she joined Dr. Julie Decock’s team at QBRI as a Postdoctoral researcher. Her current research focuses on cancer-testis antigens and their role as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in Pediatric Solid Tumors.

Mahima Aggarwal is a Research Assistant at Qatar Computing Research Institute where she focuses on anticipatory humanitarian actions using AI, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs). Her work involves creating authentic datasets about natural disasters, training models, and generating scenarios for effective anticipatory actions. She is a key contributor to QarSUMO, a parallel, congestion-optimized traffic simulator built on SUMO. Her contributions include improving accuracy, dynamic rerouting, load balancing, and integrating reinforcement learning for dynamic traffic prediction and network repartitioning. Additionally, she contributed to adding features to an end-to-end browser-based simulation/visualization system for local stakeholders.

With a strong foundation in embedded systems and software engineering, Mahima brings over 15 years of expertise in research, development, and system design. Before her current role, Mahima worked as a research assistant at Qatar University’s KINDI Center for Computing Research, focusing on cybersecurity for next-generation healthcare systems. Her career also includes roles as a testing & commissioning engineer at Sony Professional Solutions, as well as software engineering positions at NXP (Freescale Semiconductor) and KritiKal Solutions.

Dr. Ahmed Lekssays is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Qatar Computing Research Institute. He obtained his PhD from the University of Insubria in Varese, Italy in 2022 funded by EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. His research interests include malware analysis, software security, and distributed systems.