Anne Schmalstig is an assistant professor of practice in English at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) at Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU), where she joined after teaching literature and academic composition courses for four years at Texas A&M University at Qatar (TAMU-Q).

She received a PhD in English Literature from the University of Miami, and an MA in English Literature from Purdue University. Her academic work focuses on narratives of climate change and environmental concerns in speculative fiction, with particular interests in Afrofuturism and the New Weird. Her research and teaching interests include environmental humanities, climate fiction, science fiction, writing about literature, and writing about the environment.

Dr. Naqaa Abbas earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from Western University where her research focused on representations of Islam and the other in nineteenth-century British, German, and French Romanticism. Her work on representation continues with ongoing projects that examine questions of gender, cultural identity, and linguistic identity in writing communities in the Gulf today.

Before joining HBKU, Dr. Abbas was a faculty member in English and served as the Writing in the Disciplines coordinator at Texas A&M University in Qatar. In her teaching and administrative roles, she focused on effective business communication, writing pedagogy, and writing in the disciplines for undergraduate students.

She has over eighteen years of teaching and administrative experience in North American, European, and Middle Eastern institutions. Before joining HBKU, Dr. Abbas taught a variety of composition and literature courses at Western University, Zurich University, the University of Saskatchewan, and Qatar University.

She has received multiple teaching grants at TAMUQ, including a Transformative Educational Experience Grant for three consecutive years and a Multiversity Grant. Her commitment to teaching and service has been recognized through two prestigious university-wide awards: the Early Career Faculty Excellence Award and the Distinguished Service Award.

Dr. Ibrahim Zain is a 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. Noor Al-Maslamani is a researcher working at the interface of cell mechanics, bioengineering, and biology, focused on developing mechanics-informed in vitro platforms for studying neurological development and disease. She received her PhD in musculoskeletal biology (medicine) from the University of Liverpool and holds a master’s degree in biomedical sciences and a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering.

Her research centers on cellular and tissue mechanotransduction in human systems, integrating biophysical microenvironment control and advanced 3D culture technologies to generate reproducible, human-relevant disease models aligned with New Approach Methodologies (NAMs).

In parallel, Dr. Al-Maslamani investigates mechanobiology-driven disease mechanisms using mechanosensitive pathways, including the low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP) family, to understand how mechanical cues regulate tissue development, maturation, and dysfunction. This work incorporates population-specific molecular and genetic analyses to identify mechanobiology-relevant signatures and variants that are clinically meaningful in the Qatari context.

Her long-term objective is to develop a coherent and scalable research direction that couples platform innovation with mechanistic discovery, strengthening Qatar’s capacity in in vitro disease modeling, therapeutic screening, and translational biomedical innovation, while contributing to the mentoring and development of interdisciplinary researchers.

Together, these efforts define a unified research focus in mechanics-informed modeling of human neural development and neurological disease, integrating experimental platforms, mechanistic insight, and enabling technologies.
 

Dr. Sana obtained her Master’s in Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Therapeutic Targets from Paris Diderot University, France. In 2014, she completed her PhD in Therapeutic Innovation, both fundamental and applied, at Paris XI University, France. Her doctoral work focused on molecular and cellular physiopathology of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (iPAH). In 2017, Dr. Sana A. Bentebbal joined the College of Health and Life Science at Hamad Bin Khalifa University as a Postdoctoral researcher where she investigated the molecular and cellular mechanism of human infertility caused by KASH5 mutation.

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 Breast cancer.

Dr. K. Muhammed Shafi is a scientist at the Center for Quantum Computing (QC2), College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Dr. Shafi earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan, in 2020. He also holds an M. Tech. in Optoelectronics and Optical Communication from the University of Kerala and an M.Sc. in Physics from Aligarh Muslim University, India.

His research encompasses quantum communication, quantum illumination, and nanophononics, with experimental expertise in entangled photon generation, single-photon sources, time-correlated single-photon counting, cryogenic optical spectroscopy, optical nanofibers, photonic crystal cavities, and laser cooling of atoms.

Dr. Saif Al-Kuwari is an Assistant Professor at the College of Science and Engineering at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and an adjunct Research Assistant Professor at Kindi Center for computing research, Qatar University. Dr. Al-Kuwari holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computers and Networks from the University of Essex, UK (2006), and two PhD's in computer science from the University of Bath, UK (2012) and Royal Holloway, University of London, UK (2012).

Previously, he was the Director of the Department of Information Technology (2013 – 2018) and the Acting Director of the Department of Archiving and Documents (2016 – 2019) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar.

Dr. Al-Kuwari received several awards including two platinum awards for outstanding academic performance and two MESA-CISO100 Government Security Leader awards. Dr. Al-Kuwari is an IET Fellow, a BSC Fellow, an IEEE Senior Member, an ACM Senior Member, an IACR Member, an AAAS member and an MAA Member.

Dr. Irtiza obtained his PhD from Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He worked with numerous internationally renowned research teams and institutions in the field of quantum information sciences. He was a member of Prof. Rainer Blatt's group at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and later at the University of Innsbruck, Austria with Prof. Christian F. Roos. Subsequently, he joined the EU Thorium Nuclear Clock project where he stayed in Prof. Peter Thirolf's group at the University of Munich (LMU) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Germany. In addition, he worked as a consultant at IonQ Quantum Inc. MD, USA, and conducted research at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan.

Muhammad Talha Rahim is a PhD student at the Qatar Center for Quantum Computing (QC2), Hamad Bin Khalifa University. With a technical foundation in Electrical Engineering from NUST, Pakistan (2019), he transitioned into the quantum domain during his Master’s at Kyung Hee University (2023).
His previous work focused on quantum metrology and communication, exploring the fundamental limits of measurement and information transfer. Currently, his research at HBKU aims to develop error-mitigated solutions for quantum sensing and communication, leveraging his international background to address the critical challenges of noise and decoherence in quantum systems.