Before joining ORNL in 2015 to manage the Laboratory’s Office of Institutional and Strategic Planning and its Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, Dr. Khaleel was executive director of the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, where he led the establishment and execution of programs in renewable energy, water conservation, and atmospheric sciences. 

Earlier, during a 20-year career at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Dr. Khaleel held several technical and senior managerial positions.  He directed PNNL’s Computational Sciences and Mathematics Division from 2003 to 2013 and was co-founder of the Northwest Institute for Advanced Computing at the University of Washington.

Dr. Khaleel received his doctorate in structural mechanics from Washington State University and an MBA from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Alberto Figoli is serving as the Director of the Institute on Membrane Technology of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ITM), Rende (CS) Italy, since 1st March 2019. His research expertise include membrane science and engineering with special focus on membrane preparation and characterisation, membrane applications in environmental filed, membrane contactor applications, pervaporation, downstream processing based on molecular separation, membrane emulsifier and encapsulation, integrated membrane operations for water treatment.

Nicholas Hankins  leads the research activity at the Laboratory for Sustainable Water Engineering at The University of Oxford, UK. This focusses on developing sustainable engineering processes for clean water acquisition, recycle and reuse in a world of diminishing resources, climate change and the drive to reduce environmental and carbon footprints.

Majeda Khraisheh is Professor and Head of Department of Chemical Engineering at Qatar University, PhD. in Chemical Engineering, Water and Wastewater Treatment, Carbon Management and Conversion, Clean Energy, Ionic Liquids, Gas Hydrates Inhibition, Desalination.

Mohamed Khayet is an expert on membrane science and technology (membrane design and fabrication, membrane processes including nanofiltration, emerging technologies) and water treatment (desalination, wastewater treatment, etc.) at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain.

Shengqian Ma is Principal Investigator of the Ma research lab focuses on the development of functional porous materials including metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), porous organic polymers (POPs), and microporous carbon materials for energy, biological, environmental-related applications at the University of North Texas, USA.

Ognjen Miljanic is Principal Investigator of the Milijanic Research Group of the Houston University, USA and was promoted to Professor in 2019.  He is the recipient of UH Teaching & Research Excellence, NSF CAREER, and Cottrell Scholar awards, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Iqbal Mujtaba is a Professor of Computational Process Engineering and is the Associate Dean (Learning, Teaching & Quality).  He is a Chartered Chemical Engineer, a Chartered Scientist and is a Fellow of the IChemE.  His current research focus is in the area of water, energy and food (three of the four key challenge areas for future chemical engineers as identified by IChemE) at  Bradford University, UK.

Will Le Quesne is a Principal Ecosystem Scientist, and Director of the International Centre for Ocean Protection and Use. And Director of the Middle East Programme at Cefas Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the UK Government’s marine science advisory agency.

Dr. Le Quesne is a research and advisory scientist with over 15 years’ experience in leading and participating in international and multi-disciplinary marine advisory, assessment and research programmes.

Bernhard Riegl is an associate professor at Nova Southeastern University,  Oceanographic Center and a research scientist at the National Coral Reef Institute. His research interests and teaching center around coral reefs and other carbonate environments.