Dr. Ibrahim Zain is Executive Associate Dean and Professor of Islamic Studies and History of Religion at the College of Islamic Studies (CIS), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). His various academic postings include Dean of the Kulliyyah (Faculty) of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (KIRKHS) and Dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). He writes extensively on the history of religions and reform of Islamic education and has authored over 50 publications, including several books, in English and Arabic. Dr. Zain is a leading scholar on the study of the Covenants of the Prophet Muḥammad.

Dr. Alam is an Associate Professor at the College of Science and Engineering. His research work is centered around the application of artificial intelligence (AI) on the diagnosis and prognosis of communicable and non-communicable diseases.

His work aims at risk factor stratification, enhancing diagnostic accuracy, and recommending personalized treatment plans for conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and lung cancer. His vision is to establish an AI-enabled personalized healthcare system for the community at a larger scale.

Dr. Akel Ismail Kahera is a professor and the director of the Graduate Program in Islamic Architecture and Sustainable Urbanism at the College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar. Raised in Brooklyn, New York, he earned his Bachelor of Architecture from the Pratt Institute, followed by a Master of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

With over thirty years of international experience as an architect, urban planner, and critic, he has also held a range of academic and administrative roles, including professor and dean at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts in Qatar; professor and senior associate dean for research and graduate studies at Clemson University in South Carolina; and professor and director at Prairie View A&M University. 

Dr. Kahera’s research, supported by grants from the Qatar Foundation and the Brown Foundation of Houston, Texas, explores the cultural, typological, and sustainable dimensions of architecture and urbanism across the MENA region, the Americas, and the Global South. Dr. Kahera is a trustee of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture, and Urbanism (INTBAU) and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of New Design Ideas, among other affiliations.

Dr. Ahmet Faruk Aysan is a Professor and Associate Dean for Research at Hamad Bin Khalifa University and a full member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA). He previously served as a Board Member and Monetary Policy Committee Member at the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye. He has also consulted for prominent institutions, including the World Bank, Oxford Analytica, and the Central Bank of Türkiye. His research contributions have earned him multiple awards, including the Islamic Economics Research Award from IKAM, the Arab Fintech Forum’s Fintech Researcher of the Year Award (2023), and HBKU’s Research Excellence Award (2024). He is also a recipient of the Boğaziçi University Foundation’s Publication and Academic Promotion Awards, as well as the prestigious Ibn Khaldun Prize. Dr. Aysan is a Research Associate at University College London’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies (UCL CBT), a Research Fellow at the Economic Research Forum, and a Non-resident Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. He also chairs the MENA Chapter Academy of Sustainable Finance, Accounting, Accountability & Governance (ASFAAG). In 2020, Dr. Aysan was listed among the top influencers in Islamic banking and finance by an academic article published in the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal.

Dr. Rashid Yahiaoui is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the Department of Language, Culture and Communication at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar. He has a PhD in Translation Studies from London Metropolitan University, UK, and a Master in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Salford, UK. Dr. Yahiaoui has a wealth of experience lecturing in translation and interpreting, EFL, and academic writing. He also has extensive experience as a professional interpreter, working for the Foreign Office and National Health Service in the UK for over 10 years.

Ahmed Al-Saadi is a Research Assistant (Software Engineer) in the Energy Management program at QEERI. He is a graduate of Concordia University in Montréal with a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) in Electrical Engineering. He has over 15 years of experience in a variety of domains, including web engineering, concurrent systems, fault-tolerant systems, application security, network security, among others. Ahmed believes in applying software engineering principles that are grounded in academic research to solve real-world, practical problems. 
 

Jim is a principal scientist at the Qatar Computing Research Institute, a professor in the College of Science and Engineering, Hamad bin Khalifa University, and an Adjunct Professor at the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University. He is a graduate of West Point and has a Ph.D. in computer science from Texas A&M University, along with master’s degrees from Texas A&M (computer science) and Troy State (international relations).

Dr. Samir Belhaouari is an Associate Professor at the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He conducts research in various areas, including classification techniques, feature extraction and selection, and data preprocessing. Dr. Belhaouari is developing the multilevel architecture of deep learning (MADL), which optimizes networks at different levels and stages. He has created innovative algorithms for time-frequency decomposition, feature selection, and optimization techniques. Additionally, he explores image and graph representation methods to address complex data challenges and works on compressing deep learning to improve performance while reducing costs and energy consumption.

Additionally, he has developed an enhanced hashing function, drawing inspiration from a mathematical conjecture. His contributions have been recognized through the securing of several national and international research funds, such as HBKU-Thematic and QNRF-NPRP-BSRA. Dr. Belhaouari has served as the principal investigator (PI) and played a significant role in the field of AI. Dr. Belhaouari's work encompasses mathematics, machine learning, data analysis, and classification. His pioneering techniques and algorithms hold great potential for enhancing performance across a wide range of applications.

Dr. Nady El Hajj is an Associate Professor at the College of Health and Life Science at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. He joined Hamad Bin Khalifa University in 2019 as an Assistant Professor. Dr. El Hajj graduated in biology from the American University of Beirut in 2007 and received his PhD from the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Würzburg in 2011. His dissertation work investigated the epigenetic risks of assisted reproductive technologies and infertility on germ cells and embryos. During his postdoctoral training at the lab of Thomas Haaf, he focused on identifying whether maternal gestational diabetes during pregnancy causes epigenetic alterations in the developing fetus.

In addition, he was involved in studying paternal age effects on germ cells and the offspring of older fathers from an epigenetic perspective. In 2017, he joined Baylor College of Medicine on a fellowship supported by the German research foundation where he performed bioinformatics analysis on whole genome bisulfite sequencing data to understand interindividual DNA methylation variation in humans. His research is published in more than 70 peer-reviewed articles and has been cited more than 3700 times.

Bernice Lo is an Assistant Professor at the College of Health and Life Sciences at Hamad Bin Khalifa University and an investigator at Sidra Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of immune regulation and tolerance. Her work includes identifying the genetic basis of disease in patients with immune dysregulation and autoimmunity. The ultimate goal is to elucidate the molecular pathways involved and, therefore, discover new therapeutic targets for disease treatment or novel drugs for immunomodulation.

She has made significant contributions to discovering, understanding, and diagnosing various genetic disorders of immune dysregulation. Dr. Lo’s lab specializes in using cellular and biochemical techniques to uncover the role of newly discovered gene mutations in causing disease and in understanding the function of these genes in immune regulation. She is also interested in developing methods for disease diagnosis or evaluating treatment efficacy by assessing immune biomarkers.