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Dr. Abdullah Al-Kamali has worked as Special Programs Manager for QNRF for the past four and a half years, dealing with the K-12 (Kindergarten - grade 12) education program and Secondary School Research Experience Program (SSREP). He graduated with a BA in Education from Qatar University in 1994 and has spent 20 years working in the field of education, working his way up from teaching to being the senior expert of curriculum standards at the Supreme Education Council (SEC). He received his PhD in the Philosophy of Education from the University of Arkansas in 2007.

QNRF has recently teamed up with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to sponsor a joint funding programme. NIAID, a division of the National Institutes of Health, is responsible for supporting, funding, and carrying out all of the infectious disease, immunology-related and transplant-related research that NIH funds. Each year they receive approximately 4.8 billion dollars from US Congress, 80% of which is awarded to scientists to carry out research that targets infectious diseases and immunology.

QNRF recently hosted the Global Research Council (GRC) Regional Meeting (RM) for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region The GRC is an informal organization among public funding agencies worldwide. In a global research environment, researchers already cooperate and it is imperative that funding agencies work together to enable these collaborations, something that is encouraged by the GRC. QNRF spoke to Dr Graham Harrison, representing the National Science Foundation for the GRC during his recent visit to Doha.

Dr. Wyatt R. (Rory) Hume is Executive Director of Education, Training and Development, Research and Development Division, Qatar Foundation. His mandate is to help promote human capability in all areas related to the research and development needs of Qatar using the resources of the Foundation.

Hume is a former Executive Vice President and Provost (Chief Academic Officer and Chief Operating Officer) of the University of California system of ten campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, UCD, UCI, UCSB, UCR, UCSC, UCM) and three national laboratories. He also served concurrently as the UC system's Vice President for Health Affairs. He had previously served as Executive Vice Chancellor of UCLA, then as President of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Following his retirement from the University of California in 2008 he served for four years as Provost of the United Arab Emirates University.

Dr Khalid Al Subai is the Scientific Director, Special Projects, at Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI). He and his team—based in Qatar, the US and the UK—are behind the discovery of the exoplanets Qatar 1 and Qatar 2. The investigators recently were recently awarded QNRF’s prestigious National Priorities Research Program-Exceptional Proposals (NPRP-EP) grant, of approximately US$ 5m, spanning five years of research. Dr. Al Subai graciously spoke to us about the field of exoplanetary research, the field of astronomy in Qatar, specifically, and what his team aims to do in the years ahead.

Mr. Faisal Alsuwaidi's illustrious career began almost four decades ago when he began working for Qatar Petroleum (QP), rising to become QP's Administration Director. In 1997, he became the Vice Chairman and CEO of Qatargas, where he oversaw the construction and realization of LNG trains that are still the largest in the world, while Laffan is the largest condensate refinery in the world. As Qatar Foundation's President of Research and Development, Mr. Alsuwaidi brings a wealth of management and strategic experience to the research sector of Qatar Foundation. This interview highlights his transition, his vision for more collaboration among institutions and the power of the recently-unveiled National Research Strategy.

Dr. Thomas Zacharia received a PhD in Engineering from Clarkson University in the field of computational materials science. Prior to his new role at Qatar Foundation, he served as Deputy Laboratory Director and Chief Research Officer of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, overseeing annual expenditures of $1.6 billion throughout a range of sectors, including energy and engineering sciences, computing and computational sciences, life and environmental sciences, and national security.

Dr Somaya Al-Ma’adeed received her BSc in computer science from Qatar University in 1994. She received her MSc in mathematics and computer science from Alexandria University, Egypt, in 1999 and went on to get her PhD in computer science from Nottingham University in 2004. Since 1994, she has worked on research based at Qatar University, specializing in character recognition, writer identification, speech recognition, tendering systems and document management. Dr Al-Ma'adeed has published around 20 papers in these areas and is currently an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Qatar University.