Scientist Biographies

Our Scientists

Dr. Fahhad Alharbi
Dr. Fedaa Ali
Dr. Marcelo Carignano
Dr. Abdelkrim Chemseddine
Dr. Sabre Kais
Dr. Yasir Mohieldeen

Dr. Abdelkrim Chemseddine

Dr. Abdelkrim Chemseddine is the Principal Investigator for Nanotechnology at QEERI. He will be applying his nanotechnological expertise towards energy applications.

He was educated at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France. He obtained an MSc in spectrochemistry and structure in 1981, a Doctorat de 3me Cycle in the chemistry of isopolytungstates in 1983, and a Doctorat d'État in the sol-gel chemistry of tungsten oxide in 1986. He was subsequently appointed as a Research Associate at the Materials Science and Engineering Department of the University of California, Los Angeles from 1986–1987. As an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Guest Scientist, he worked at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, between 1987 and 1989. He spent one year teaching chemistry at the Faculty of Science at University Hassan II in Morocco. He then worked as a Guest Scientist at the Hahn-Meitner Institute Berlin, Germany, focusing on sol-gel processing of highly porous semiconductor-oxide films. Since 1991 he has been a senior scientist at the Helmholtz Center for Energy and Materials with research interests in the field of nanocrystals and nanostructured materials, which have environmental and energy applications. In 1997, as a visiting professor, he taught the chemistry of nanocrystals at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Find more information about the Nano & Material Science Group here.

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Dr. Sabre Kais

Dr. Sabre Kais is the Principal Investigator for computation and theory at QEERI. He is a specialist in physical and theoretical chemistry and computer science. Sabre Kais’s research is in the field of energy transfer and quantum coherence, critical phenomena, finite size scaling, quantum phase transitions, electronic structure and stability of matter under external fields, global optimization, and quantum information and computation. In 1989, Prof. Kais received his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the Hebrew University. After a postdoctoral appointment at Harvard University 1989-1994, he joined the Chemistry Department at Purdue in 1994 as an Assistant Professor. Since 2002, he has been a full professor of Chemical Physics. He received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 1997. He was also awarded the Purdue University Faculty Scholar Award (2004-2009), and the Guggenheim Fellowship Award (2005). In 2007, Prof. Kais was the Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2012, he received the Sigma Xi Research Award. He has courtesy professorship appointments at both the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Physics at Purdue. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers and served on the editorial board of several chemistry and physics journals.

Find more information about the Theory & Analysis Group here.

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Dr. Fahhad Alharbi

Dr. Alharbi is a Senior Scientist working in both the Solar Energy and the Computational groups at QEERI. For solar energy, he works to develop efficient solar cells with alternative concepts and materials. While in the computational group, he is developing and deploying new mesh-free numerical methods. The methods are implemented for optoelectronics simulation and “real space” quantum computations. He obtained a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2004 and M.S. and B.S. degrees from King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) in 2001 and 1997, respectively. He has worked for Saudi Aramco, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), and IBM Inc. His current research interests are device physics, semiconductors, and meshfree numerical methods and “orbital free” density functional theory.

Find more information about the Theory & Analysis Group here.
Find more information about Solar Energy here.

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Dr. Marcelo Carignano

Dr. Carignano is a Senior Scientist at QEERI working in the Computational and Theory Group. He received his PhD in Physics from Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina) and worked in Purdue University (USA), Lund University (USA), University of Delaware (USA) and Northwestern University (USA). His research interests include computational methods for atomistic and coarse-grained simulations, including Monte Carlo, molecular and Brownian dynamics simulations. Dr. Carignano applies simulation methods to study materials properties for systems relevant for energetic, environmental and biological applications. He has numerous publications related to polymers at interfaces, structural and rheological properties of gel materials, cluster structure and thermodynamics, properties and anomalies of water in its different phases and their interfaces, plastic crystals, polymer electrolytes and adsorption of proteins to solid substrates. His current research activities include the development of the computational framework to study organic ionic plastic crystals, a new type of solid electrolytes with applications to energy storage and light harvesting devices.

Find out more about the Theory & Analysis Group here.

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Dr. Yasir Mohieldeen

Dr. Mohieldeen is a Scientist with expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial data analysis. He is using his expertise to support all areas of energy and environmental research at QEERI. He has extensive experience in the areas of water resource management problems, monitoring and regulation of domestic and industrial water services, and natural resources evaluation.

He graduated from Khartoum University in Sudan from the Surveying Department in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture in 1992. He then worked in the National Remote Sensing Centre of Sudan and contributed to many projects using GIS, EO and GPS to collect and analyze spatial data. In 1994, Dr. Mohieldeen joined a British company, Huntings Technical Services, in Khartoum and worked on a project analyzing drought and drought frequency in Sudan using GIS and EO. He obtained a Master’s degree in environment and development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London from 1998-2000. During this time, he contributed to undergraduate and post-graduate education in GIS and EO. In 2005, he was appointed the position of Remote Sensing Engineer at the Surrey University Space Centre, where he gained valuable experience in capturing and distributing EO data for projects world-wide. He completed his PhD in 2007, when he also joined Biwater, a UK company specializing in water services and water treatment. He provided GIS and management services in Khartoum and, from 2009, in Amman. In 2011, Dr. Mohieldeen worked as a GIS Specialist on a project using GIS techniques to record systems at risk in water networks in London and other UK cities for the 2012 Olympic Games.

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Dr. Fedaa Ali

Dr. Ali is a Research Scientist in the area of material science and engineering at QEERI. She is focusing on developing an environmental database and conducting research on emerging solar photovoltaic technologies.

She holds a PhD in material science and engineering from the University of London, with 28 years of experience across various sectors: academia, an atomic energy organization, the heavy industry sector, and finally as Expert/ Chief Researcher at the Ministry of Sciences and Technology in Baghdad. She has served as a Lecturer, Researcher, Project Manager, Consultant, and the Executive Director of Casting Research Centre. In addition to being a faculty member for eight years, Dr. Ali worked at the University of Baghdad and University of Technology, where she lectured for different courses and supervised PhD and MSc theses. Dr. Ali headed and/or acted as Member within various committees, boards, and consulting bodies where she gained competence in drawing policies and suggesting strategic action plans and helped to shape and revise annual and strategic budgets. She also acquired proficiency in designing and leading research programs and securing funding, as well as establishing and/or developing research infrastructure and tailoring training courses for continuous education. Dr. Ali has produced more than 250 published papers, applied studies, classified research, achievement and creative works, in addition to one book and two national programs. She joined Qatar Foundation in 2006 to establish the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), worked as Program Manager (industry and engineering) and headed the Environmental Group of Arab Expatriate Scientists (AES), where she helped to plan for multidisciplinary research.

Find more information about the Theory & Analysis Group here.
Find more information about the Nano & Material Science Group here.

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