FELLOWS

Ibn Rushd Program

Meet our Ibn Rushd Fellows

Fourth Cohort : 2025

Name:		Sarah Al Abdullatif
PhD Year:		2025
Current Institution:		Emory University
Research Area:		DNA nanostructures

"Sarah Al Abdullatif is a Ph.D. candidate at Emory University, specializing in DNA nanostructures for studying mechanical forces in biological processes such as immune cell activation. She holds a master’s from KAUST and is a KGSP alumna, through which she earned her bachelor’s from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research integrates bioengineering and nanotechnology to explore cellular mechanisms.
Al Abdullatif has presented her work at international conferences and received recognition for contributions to the field. She will conduct her postdoctoral research at MIT, utilizing DNA origami nanostructures to investigate immune cell activation and neuronal protein interactions. Her work aims to advance treatments for immune-related diseases and neurological disorders while contributing to Saudi Arabia’s vision of advancing research to address health challenges.

Name:		Mohammed Alghadeer
PhD Year:
Current Institution:		University of Oxford
Research Area:		Superconducting quantum computing and condensed matter physics

Mohammed Alghadeer, a Rhodes scholar, conducted his Ph.D. research in superconducting quantum computing and condensed matter physics at Oxford. His primary research interests focus on developing quantum devices for quantum information processing and simulations. Through Ibn Rushd, Alghadeer will continue his research at Oxford.
He completed his undergraduate studies in Physics and Electrical Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). At KAUST, he worked on novel surface treatments to reduce quantum device coherence losses.
Alghadeer also conducted research at the Quantum Nanoelectronics Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he investigated defects in quantum processors that limit their efficiency and control. His additional research interests include computational materials and machine learning. He has presented at international conferences and received multiple awards.

Name:		Shorooq Abdulrhman Alomar
PhD Year:		2025
Current Institution:		King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Research Area:		Dynamics and energy transfer systems

Shorooq Abdulrhman Alomar is a KAUST Ph.D. candidate in Materials Science and Engineering, supervised by Professor Omar F. Mohammed. Her research explores carrier dynamics and energy transfer systems in optoelectronic materials to improve imaging and energy conversion technologies. Holding a master’s in Physical Chemistry from Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, where she researched solar cells and quantum dot materials, Alomar conducted practical research at KFUPM . Before pursuing her Ph.D., she earned multiple awards at SADARA Chemical Company. Alomar has received the Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue her research at Harvard, where she will study light-matter interactions in energy conversion applications, advancing Saudi Arabia’s leadership in energy technologies for the future.

Name:		Omar Alshangiti
PhD Year:
Current Institution:		Oxford University
Research Area:		Scalable solutions for energy and industrial processes

Omar Alshangiti is a Ph.D. student at Oxford, researching materials for electrochemical energy storage. He holds dual degrees in Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he conducted research at the Beckman Institute. His work focuses on developing scalable solutions for energy and industrial processes through electrochemistry and materials engineering. A recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Rhodes Scholarship, the Misk Fellowship and KGSP, Alshangiti will carry out his Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT, developing scalable electrochemical methods for energy and industrial processes. His work supports Saudi Vision 2030 by advancing clean energy solutions and optimizing industrial processes.

Name:		Akram Alwithenani
PhD Year:
Current Institution:		Harvard
Research Area:		High-throughput drug discovery and virus-based therapies for cancer

Akram Alwithenani is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, focusing on cancer gene and immunotherapy. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa, specializing in high-throughput drug discovery and virus-based therapies for cancer. His research integrates genetic engineering and immunotherapy to develop innovative cancer treatments. During his Ph.D., Alwithenani discovered several novel viral enhancer compounds that demonstrated efficacy against cancer cells and are currently being patented. Committed to advancing gene and immunotherapy-based cancer treatments, he received the Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship, enabling him to continue his research at Harvard in alignment with Saudi Arabia’s National Biotechnology Strategy.

Name:		Abdullah Hassan Bukhamsin
PhD Year:		2025
Current Institution:		King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Research Area:		Invasive sensors for environmental and agricultural applications

Abdullah Hassan Bukhamsin is a KAUST Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering, working under the mentorship of Professor Khaled N. Salama. His research focuses on developing minimally invasive sensors for environmental and agricultural applications. He holds a master’s in Electrical Engineering from KAUST. As part of the KAUST Gifted Students Program (KGSP), he earned a bachelor’s in Bioengineering from Rice University. His work includes plant-wearable sensors for precision agriculture, coral reef monitoring and a patented dipstick test for detecting diesel adulterants. Recognized with multiple awards, including the KAUST Dean’s Award and IEEE Biosensors Conference Best Paper Award, he is also a recipient of prestigious research scholarships. Bukhamsin will carry out his Ibn Rushd Postdoctoral Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, focusing on wearable electrochemical sensors for smart health applications and precision farming technologies, supporting smart healthcare solutions and sustainable agriculture and food security.

Third Cohort : 2024

Name:		Abrar Aljahani
PhD Year:		2024
Current Institution:		King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Research Area:		Quantum Technology

Name:		Yara Alshwairikh
PhD Year:		2025
Current Institution:		Yale University,
Research Area:

Second Cohort : 2023

Name:		Hanin Ahmed
PhD Year:		2022
Current Institution:		Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse (CAGT) - CNRS
Research Area:		Population Genomics

After earning her BSc degree from Taibah University in Madinah, Hanin continued her academic journey and pursued an MSc and Ph.D. in bioscience from KAUST, where she discovered her fascination with applying computational techniques to DNA sequence data. With a background in molecular biology, she joined Simon's Krattiner lab at KAUST and became interested in genomics and population genomics of cereal crops. Her Ph.D. research focused on using genomic tools to better understand the crop's genetic diversity and evolutionary history. Dedicated to refining her knowledge and skills, Hanin has become a highly skilled population genomicist, receiving invitations to present her work at several prestigious international conferences. Driven by her passion for unlocking the mysteries of the past, Hanin is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Anthropobiology & Genomics of Toulouse (CAGT) - CNRS, working on analyzing ancient DNA sequences of horses. Hanin's dream is to establish the necessary tools, resources, expertise, and skills required to establish an ancient DNA laboratory in Saudi Arabia to reveal the hidden history of her homeland. Beyond her scientific pursuits, Hanin finds joy in weightlifting, skiing, hiking, and traveling.

Name:		Abdulrahman Aldossary
PhD Year:		2023
Current Institution:		University of Toronto
Research Area:		Quantum Chemistry

Dr. Abdulrahman Aldossary obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley working with Prof. Martin Head-Gordon. Dr. Aldossary worked on developing new computational quantum chemistry methods. These range from accelerating electronic structure calculations such as DFT to new methods for the analysis of these calculations to facilitate chemical interpretation. Dr. Aldossary obtained his HBS from Oregon State University working under Prof. Greg Herman. Starting this summer, he will start his postdoctoral work with Prof. Alan Aspuru-Guzik at the University of Toronto. In his free time, he likes to hike and bike, and explore new places.

Name:		Wedyan Babatain
PhD Year:		2022
Current Institution:		Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Area:		Soft Interactive Electronics

Wedyan Babatain is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. She has an interdisciplinary background in biomedical and electrical engineering. Her research focuses on developing soft and flexible sensors, actuators, and their fabrication strategies for healthcare and interactive applications.

Name:		Tamadher Alghunaim
PhD Year:		2019
Current Institution:		Stanford University
Research Area:		Biological Sciences

Tamadher received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, where she conducted her studies in the Diabetes Complications Lab of Dr. Andrew Advani. After obtaining her Ph.D., she joined the Islet Biology Lab of Dr. Patrick MacDonald at the University of Alberta. Her postdoctoral studies focused on identifying the molecular mechanisms of genetic risk for type 2 diabetes. She will continue building on her postdoctoral research with Dr. Anna Gloyn at the Translational Genomics of Diabetes Lab at Stanford University.

Name:		Rabab Alomairy
PhD Year:		2022
Current Institution:		Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Area:		High Performance Computing

Rabab Alomairy is a computer science Ph.D. graduate working in the Extreme Computing Research Center at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Her research is centered around task-based numerical libraries and applications, performance optimizations for multicore/manycore architectures and hardware accelerators, dynamic runtime systems, GPU programming, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. She is selected as one of the rising stars in computational and data sciences by the US Department of Energy. She received the prestigious Gauss Award for Supercomputing of Excellence from ISC High-Performance Computing Conference, and KAUST Research Excellence Award for academic year 21/20. In the KAUST-NVIDIA workshop, she achieved 1st place in the Artificial Intelligence competition based on the geospatial dataset.

Name:		Emad Al Ibrahim
PhD Year:		2023
Current Institution:		Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Area:		Machine learning for spectroscopy and kinetics

Emad received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2017 through the KAUST Gifted Student Program (KGSP) scholarship. He then moved to KAUST and earned a master's degree in 2018, where he worked on computational fluid dynamics. He then gained practical experience through internships at Saudi Aramco and Lucid Motors. He is pursuing a Ph.D. at KAUST, working with Professor Farooq on machine-learning applications in spectroscopy and kinetics.

Name:		Mohammed Aljohani
PhD Year:		2023
Current Institution:		University of Washington
Research Area:		Genome Engineering

Mohammed earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2017. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Bioengineering under the supervision of Assistant Professor Christian Frøkjær-Jensen in the Laboratory of Synthetic Genome Biology. His work employs synthetic biology and high-throughput genome editing methods to characterize genetic features and enable the next-generation of molecular technology.

Name:		Mohammed Alsharif
PhD Year:		2021
Current Institution:		California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Research Area:		Signal Processing

Mohammed H. AlSharif is a research scientist at the Aramco Research Center (ARC). He received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2021. In 2020, he was a Visiting Scholar at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. His research interests include signal processing, signal design, and machine learning, with applications in indoor localization, motion tracking, and hand gesture recognition.

Name:		Mohammad Aljubran
PhD Year:		2024
Current Institution:		Stanford University
Research Area:		Flexible power systems using reinforcement learning

Mohammad is a Ph.D. candidate in Energy Science & Engineering working with Prof. Roland Horne at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. His Ph.D. research is focused on the optimization of geothermal power and energy storage techno-economics in decarbonized grids using reinforcement learning algorithms. Mohammad has four years of professional experience across different roles (e.g., computational researcher, data scientist). He also has a prolific publication record with over 34 journal and conference articles and four granted patents.

Founding Cohort : 2022

Name:		Samhan Alsolami
PhD Year:		2022
Current Institution:		Salk Institute
Research Area:		Human Aging - Neuroscience - Stem Cell Biology - Organoids

Samhan is finishing up his Ph.D. at KAUST in the stem cell and regeneration laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Mo Li. His Ph.D. thesis focused on pluripotency, 3D embryo models, and the environmental regulation of cell culture. Now, he is pursuing his post-graduate studies with the Ibn Rushd fellowship at the Salk institute under the supervision of Prof. Fred H. Gage. His postdoctoral research will aim to reveal the mechanisms that drive human aging and possible ways to reverse them. Normal human aging is a progressive phenomenon that is associated with many human disorders. Finding approaches that reverse human aging will have a broad positive impact on improving human health span, both in Saudi Arabia and the world. He is planning is to utilize his extensive research experience in pluripotency, cellular fate reprogramming, and organoid research to advance our understanding of human aging.

Name:		Abdullah Salloum
PhD Year:		2022
Current Institution:		Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research Area:		Materials, Energy, and Environment

Abdullah completed his undergraduate studies in 2017 at MIT with a dual degree in Materials Science and Engineering and in Physics. He then moved to KAUST for his graduate studies, where he joined Prof. Osman Bakr’s group researching and developing computational and experimental works in solar materials and renewable energy solutions. Dr. Alsalloum is now a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, focusing on integrating data science methodologies to address tangible engineering challenges.

Name:		Abdullah Hamdi
PhD Year:		2022
Current Institution:		University of Oxford
Research Area:		Deep learning for 3D understanding and generationy

Abdullah is a postdoctoral research fellow in machine learning and computer vision at the Visual Geometry Group of the University of Oxford with Prof. Andrew Zisserman and Prof. Andrea Vedaldi. Prior to that, he earned PhD and MS degrees from KAUST, working on 3D understanding with deep neural networks, advised by Prof. Bernard Ghanem. Abdullah was also partly advised by Prof. Matthias Niessner at TUM in 2022 in Munich. Abdullah is a lead organizer of the 3DMV workshop at CVPR and has won a “best paper award” at ECCV 2020, among other national and international distinctions. He is also the founder and president of fihm.ai, the largest Arabic online platform dedicated to teaching, educating, and spreading awareness about AI and deep learning technologies and applications.

Name:		Aljawharah Alrubayyi
PhD Year:		2023
Current Institution:		University of Oxford
Research Area:		Viral Immunology

Aljawharah Alrubayyi is currently a PhD student in Clinical Medicine at University of Oxford. Her research interest is directed towards chronic viral infections (Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV) and emerging viral diseases (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2). Her doctoral research is focused on understanding the role of key immune cell components, with emphasis on Natural Killer (NK) cells, during acute HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 infections and their contribution to clinical outcomes. This represents a key step for the identification of novel targets that could aid the development of vaccine and therapeutics. Aljawharah received her bachelor’s degree from King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) and master’s degree from Georgetown University (Washington DC, United States).