Samar Elkhalifa

College of Science & Engineering , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: PhD in Sustainable Energy (2022)

Samar Elkhalifa, a CSE graduate from the Class of 2022, is currently working as a "brand ambassador" with VISA company for the duration of her internship that finishes on the last day of the FIFA World Cup 2022, and also works as an Academic Research Assistant.

After her graduation, she visited 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum with fellow students and graduates representing HBKU, and volunteered in the UNESCO launch event conducted by the College of Law, HBKU. She worked with a diverse group of people who made the event a success, and was responsible for hosting and welcoming ambassadors, ministers, deans and other audience members. During her tenure as a PhD student at HBKU, her paper "Food waste to biochars through pyrolysis a review" achieved two awards: the most downloaded and the most cited article in the journal resource, conservation and recycling for paper published since 2018.

Yousef Mohammed Yousef Al-Jaber

College of Science & Engineering , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: Executive Master in Energy and Resources (2016)

Yousef Mohammed Yousef Al-Jaber, a CSE graduate from the Class of 2016, is currently the VP of Innovation and Change Management and Director of TotalEnergies Research Center at Qatar (TRCQ). He represented HBKU as an alumnus during the first Qatar Foundation graduate reunion and managed many research activities and projects in alliance with QEERI (HBKU). He restructured Total Research Center Qatar (TRCQ) and launched two programs: Sustainable Development Program (2017) and the Solar Energy Program at TRCQ (2018). For the Solar Energy program, he challenged the team to localize the research with QEERI and today, they have all of their current projects done in alliance with QEERI, with an estimate of millions of Qatari Riyals spent on an annual basis in Qatar on Solar Energy technologies. Ever since he took on the leadership of TRCQ in November 2016, he feels proud to have had the opportunity to localize and expand TRCQ’s research, with many successful projects deployed in Qatar.

Priyanka Dodia

College of Science & Engineering , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: Master of Science in Cybersecurity (2018)

Priyanka Dodia, a CSE graduate from the Class of 2018, is currently a Research Associate with Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). Since graduation, Priyanka has achieved major milestones by conducting cutting edge research which has led to advancing cybersecurity and the R&D efforts in Qatar. She conducted a threat hunting study on Ministry of Interior (MOI) network data under the supervision of Dr Mashael AlSabah at the National Cybersecurity Research Lab (NCSRL). The study resulted in exposing critical ransomware activities in two ministry networks. She is also the first author of a paper: “Exposing the Rat in the Tunnel: Using Traffic Analysis for Tor-based Malware Detection", which was inspired by her findings from the MOI study. She presented her work at the SIGSAC ACM CCS in Los Angeles (USA, November 2022), a top tier cybersecurity conference venue with a highly competitive acceptance rate. Priyanka has further secured a US patent for the idea she worked on during her master’s at HBKU. Besides research, she is giving back to the community by volunteering at HBKU events with a goal to empower women in STEM. She helped organize 'Women in Data Science’ (November 2021) which featured talks by women leaders from around the world, including Google, Facebook and Spotify. She assisted in hosting the interns at the annual QCRI internship program and encouraged them to pursue cybersecurity research by sharing her valuable insights and lessons learned over the years.

Aisha Hamad Al-Rumaihi

College of Science & Engineering , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: Master of Science in Sustainable Energy (2018)

Aisha Hamad Al-Rumaihi, a CSE graduate from the Class of 2018, is currently a Sustainability expert with QatarEnergy. She has taught graduate students at HBKU the sustainability fundamentals and tools course, and conducted and participated in research papers; with a recent paper having gotten accepted in ESCAPE 32 conference as a poster, and has since been published. She also received the ‘Best Student Oral Presentation’ award in QEERI’s ICSEWEN19 conference, and was presented a certificate of appreciation at the environmental sustainability workshop at QatarEnergy, where she went on to design and launch QatarEnergy Sustainability Data Management System.

Aisha graduated from the Qatar leadership program of rising leaders (2020), and is a winner of QNRF (Graduate student research award GSRA) and Qgrant prize scholarship at Qatar Foundation under HBKU. She had also gotten accepted to do her PhD in Sustainable and Energy program at HBKU in 2020, and went on to publish over four scientific papers in the field of sustainability and energy. She was also presented with the Doha Women Forum award for most impactful women in the state of Qatar in the field of Science and Technology (2022), and is a graduate of the Qatar Youth Ambassador program (2022).

Mohammad Alherbawi

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, College of Science & Engineering , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: PhD in Sustainable Energy (2022)

Mohammad Alherbawi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Hamad Bin Khalifa University, where he is currently conducting his research work. He has recently completed his PhD in Sustainable Energy, with a CGPA grade of 4.0/4.0. In his research, he has developed novel systems to produce aviation fuel from renewable resources available in Qatar, which are to be patented. Throughout his PhD program, he has published around 25 articles in high impact journals and represented HBKU in premium conferences held in Qatar, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Turkey and Japan.

Btool Hashim A S Mohamed

College of Science & Engineering , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: PhD in Sustainable Environment (2021)

Btool Hashim A S Mohamed, a CSE graduate from the Class of 2021, is currently a senior manager and a network engineer at Vodafone Qatar. Btool was invited to join the advisory committee for the Third Qatar National development strategy. She served as a judge in the researcher competition - Qatar Scientific Club and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and participated in the Engineering Camp of the College of Engineering - Qatar University. Btool was also awarded at the Leadership Coaching Program for future leaders. She conducted an interview about the knowledge economy, "area of my studies" and the need for qualifications, which was published in Al Sharq newspaper. The success story of her professional and academic HBKU journey was documented in the Leading & Development and Talent Newsletter.

Amal Elfatih Elgenid Abdelmageed

College of Health and Life Sciences , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: PhD in Genomics and Precision Medicine (2021)

Amal Elfatih Elgenid Abdelmageed, a CHLS graduate from the Class of 2021, is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, where she is working in collaboration with the Qatar Genome Program to identify family members at risk for genetic disorders. She was awarded the early career award from the European Society of Human Genetics (2021) after presenting an oral presentation related to her PhD work, and has been selected to chair a session in the European Society of Human Genetics Conference (2022). She published three articles in prestigious journals related to her PhD work, and one of the published papers in the Human Genetics journal was selected as the Editor's choice paper.

Nouf Almalki

College of Public Policy , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: Master of Arts in Public Policy in Islam (2018)

Nouf Almalki, a CPP graduate from the Class of 2018, is now the owner and CEO of Eroe Sports Center, her own sports academy for children where she had to implement public policy methods to build and enhance her work.

Shaimaa Al Essai

College of Humanities and Social Sciences , Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU)

Major: Master of Arts in Digital Humanities and Societies (2020)

Shaimaa Al Essai, a CHSS graduate from the Class of 2020, is a Researcher at Tactical Tech, a German company, where she is working on a project about digital privacy and security in the SWANA region. She was the only one selected from GCC, and one of 25 selected applicants (out of 1200) to participate in the MENA digital school, on the topic of digital transformation in the MENA region in Germany. She was also selected to be a member in organizing the biggest festival in the world called Mozfest on the topic of "the humane digital world" – USA, and she recently attended the Bread & Net conference in Lebanon. Shaimaa has publications on topics: media and journalism, digital privacy and safety, and digital activism.