Research Outcome Seminar: Hydrogen, the energy carrier of the future

Find more about the speakers of the Research Outcome Seminar: Hydrogen, the Energy Carrier of the Future

H.E. Dr. Cristian Tudor, EU Ambassador in Kuwait and Qatar, EU Delegation in the State of Kuwait and the State of Qatar
H.E. Dr. Cristian TUDOR, the Ambassador of the European Union to the State of Kuwait and for the State of Qatar is the first EU ambassador based in Kuwait and one of the youngest EU Ambassadors in the world.  A career diplomat with 18 years of experience on the Middle East and the Gulf states, he previously served as the Romanian Ambassador to the State of Qatar and held a number of positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania and NATO. Ambassador Tudor has a PhD and a Master’s degree in Security Studies, a Master’s degree in International and European Law and a post-graduate degree in International Relations. A fluent Arabic speaker, H.E. is a frequent commentator on the EU relations with the region and author of a number of articles on the Middle Eastern politics. He is also the first Romanian Diplomat to be awarded a NATO "Non-article five" Medal by the NATO Secretary General for the service provided in Iraq, as a part of the NATO Training Mission in 2004.

Dr. Abdul Sattar Al-Taie, Executive Director, QNRF
Dr. Abdul Sattar Al-Taie is the Executive Director of Qatar National Research Fund. He earned his B.Sc., MSc, PhD, DIC and A.C.G.I in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College, London. Prior to his formative work at QNRF, Dr. Al-Taie held key positions in Iraq with the Ministry of Oil, Iraqi Atomic Commission, Ministry of Industry & Minerals, and the National Committee for Technology Transfer. During his tenure in Iraq, he supervised the execution of numerous strategic projects. Moreover, he played a key role in a number of strategic Science & Technology initiatives. Dr. Al-Taie also taught at a number of Iraqi universities & supervised a number of MSc and PhD students. He received numerous decorations and awards throughout his career including the prestigious Science Medal of the Republic of Iraq. Since his arrival to Qatar in 2006 as a founding director, he has led the development of QNRF as a world renowned organization enabling Qatar to achieve R&D excellence by supporting original, competitively selected research that benefits Qatar in achieving its National Vision 2030 of becoming a knowledge-based society.

Frank Wouters, Director, EU GCC Clean Energy Technology Network
Mr. Frank Wouters has been leading renewable energy projects, transactions, and technology development for over 25 years. He has played a lead role in development of renewable generation projects valued at over $4.5 billion. These range from small scale PV solar electrification in Uganda to the 100MW Shams I Concentrated Solar Plant (CSP) in the UAE, and strategic equity investment in the London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind project. His transactions have received multiple project finance “Deal of the Year” awards.
As Deputy Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the first global intergovernmental organisation dedicated to all renewables, he managed a US$350 million IRENA/Abu Dhabi Fund for Development project facility for RE. He appraised over 80 projects a year and recommended projects for funding, including solar PV projects in Africa. Furthermore, he coordinated with government ministers and other stakeholders to promote private sector investment for RE projects as part of the Africa Clean Energy Corridor Initiative.
Mr. Wouters has served on the board of several energy companies, including Torresol Energy (Spain and USA), WinWind (Finland and India), Masdar cvua (Netherlands), NICE (Netherlands and The Gambia) and Gorestreet Capital (UK). Qualified with a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Delft University, he is fluent in English, German and Dutch.

Dr. Mustapha Taoumi, Clean Energy Key Expert, EU GCC Clean Energy Technology Network
Dr. Taoumi has been leading Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency projects and technology deployment for over 30 years. He has worked with US AID, GIZ (Germany), JICA (Japan) and EU (DGXII) as Project and Programme Manager. He has conducted numerous feasibility and planning studies, building programs and has implemented projects on the ground. He assisted local institutions to develop strategic plans in sustainable energy. He managed numerous seminars and training workshops concerning the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Dr. Taoumi was also involved in several initiatives and projects with a regional scope particularly in MENA and Mediterranean regions including the Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP). As a Regional Programme Officer for North Africa and the Middle East region (MENA) within the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the first global intergovernmental organisation dedicated to all renewables, Dr. Taoumi managed several projects and initiatives across MENA region including Renewables Readiness Assessment (RRA), assessment of local manufacturing potential in the Arab region and recently the Pan Arab Clean Energy initiative (PACE). Dr. Taoumi held several key positions including Secretary General and Interim Executive Director within the National Renewable Energy Centre (CDER) in Morocco - now transformed on a National dedicated Agency (ADEREE) as well as Executive Secretary of the Mediterranean Association of the National Agencies for Energy Conservation (MEDENER- Network). Before joining IRENA in 2010, he was nominated by the Ministry of Energy in Morocco as IRENA’s focal point and member of the IRENA’s Headquarters Selection Committee. Among other positions, Dr. Taoumi is an active member on several organisations, conferences and networks around the world including the MENAREC Conference International Steering Committee. ​Dr. Taoumi holds a PhD in Electrochemistry from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG) in France and master's degrees in Electrochemical Engineering and Management Science, he is fluent in English, French, Spanish as well as Arabic.

Mr. Omran Al-Kuwari - CEO Qatar Foundation International, Qatar Foundation
Omran Hamad Al-Kuwari is CEO of Qatar Foundation International and a doctoral researcher at UCL’s Institute for Sustainable Resources. Prior to joining QFI, Omran held several key leadership positions in the energy industry between 1999 and 2015 with Qatar Petroleum, ExxonMobil, GreenGulf, and South Hook Gas, in the UK, Japan and the Middle East. Omran holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from George Washington University in Washington DC and a master’s degree in Business Administration from City University London, Cass Business School. Omran’s sits on several boards including the Qatar Development Fund and Carnegie Mellon University Qatar. Omran’s current research is centred around the impact of Climate Change and decarbonisation on the energy industry, with a particular focus on LNG and Hydrogen

Mr. Jorgo Chatzimakakis, Secretary General, Hydrogen Europe 
Jorgo Chatzimarkakis is Secretary General of Hydrogen Europe since 2016. Before he was Representative of Infineon Technologies in Brussels and Member of the European Parliament (2004 – 2014) inter alia in the ITRE Committee (Industry, Technology, Research and Energy) where he could contribute to lay the cornerstone for the first and the second Joint Undertaking on hydrogen and fuel cells. In 2007 he was elected “MEP of the year” by his colleagues of the European Parliament in the category “Research and Innovation”. In 2015 he was appointed ambassador at large for Greece. 
Mr Chatzimarkakis was born in Duisburg, Germany. He holds German and Greek nationality, a degree in political science from the University of Bonn.

Dr. Konstantinos E. Kakosimos, Associate Professor. Texas A&M University at Qatar
Dr. Konstantinos E. Kakosimos is an associate professor of Chemical Engineering and the Dean's Fellow on Multiversity at Texas A&M University at Qatar. He received his Chemical Engineering Diploma in 2002 and his Ph.D. in 2009 both from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, five books and chapters in English and Greek languages, and supervised, since 2013, 31 BSc, 19 MSc, and 4 Ph.D. students. His main research activities are focused on the development and application of the tools needed to improve and sustain the quality of the environment. In brief, he conducts research on the experimental and numerical modeling of transport and reacting phenomena with applications in Environmental fluid mechanics and monitoring for air quality; Risk analysis and effects estimation of fires, explosions, and toxic gases dispersion; and Solar photo- and thermochemical processes, reactors, and materials. So far, he has received more than $6M of cumulative awards from external and internal sources. Moreover, he explores new educational methods and techniques, for which he received the 2015 IChemE Hutchison medal. He is also the recipient of the 2016 Research Laboratory Safety, 2017 Research Excellence for Early Carrier Faculty, and 2019 Faculty Excellence Awards at Texas A&M. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Kakosimos serves the local and international community variously, such as secretary of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry - Arabian Gulf Branch (2014-15), Chair of the Principle Investigators Council at Texas A&M Qatar (2017-2018), Chair of the Qatar National Air Quality Standards subcommittee of the Ministry of Municipalities and Environment (2018), and task force member at the Ministry of Public Health (2018-today).

Dr. Omar Farouk Boukhris, Senior Manager Energy and Environment Research portfolio, QNRF
Dr. Omar Farouk Boukhris holds Master’s and PhD degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering, where he specializes on investigating the impact of climate change. Throughout his studied and work experience, Dr. Boukhris held several research positions in North American and European renowned institutions, including the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne & Zurich and University of Laval, Canada. Dr. Boukhris was also the Director of the International School on Research Impact Assessment, UK. Since he joined the Qatar National Research Fund, Dr. Boukhris held different management and scientific positions including being currently the Senior Manager of Energy and Environment Research portfolio, where his responsibilities include the developing and management of research programs related to the different themes of Energy and Environment, supporting the Qatar Research, Development and Innovation Strategy 2030.

Dr. Rahul Bhosale, Associate Professor, Qatar University
Dr. Rahul R. Bhosale is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Qatar University. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2012 from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, USA. Before joining Qatar University, he gained postdoctoral experience at Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland. He has published 123 journal articles and 64 conference papers and presented at multiple national/international conferences via ~150 oral and poster contributions. He is/was actively involved in supervising multiple postdoctoral fellows, Ph.D. students, and graduate/undergraduate students. His research is focused on Solar Fuel Production, Catalysis and Materials, CO₂ Capture and Utilization, Energy Storage and Batteries, Desalination, Bioenergy and Bioproducts, Wastewater Treatment, and Thermodynamic and Kinetic Analysis. Since 2013, Dr. Bhosale has received ~2.6 million USD research funds from Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP, UREP, Industrial, CWSP), Industry, and Qatar University (IRCC, CG) grants. Dr. Bhosale is a recipient of several awards such as excellence in research award, mines medal fellowship, best undergraduate student award, junior research fellowship, and multiple best oral and poster awards. He is currently serving as an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Energy Research. Besides, he served as the Guest Editor of International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, International Journal of Energy Research, Science of the Total Environment, Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology, and International Journal of Exergy. He also served as the peer reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation. He has organized multiple conferences that include GCGW-2019 (Chair), ICAFEE-2019 (Co-Chair), ICAFEE-2018 (Committee Member), and GCGW-2018 (Committee Member).

Dr. Dhruv Arora, R&D Technology Manager, Qatar Shell Research & Technology Center
Dr. Dhruv Arora is leading Shell’s Qatar Shell Research and Technology Center (QSRTC)—an anchor tenant of the freezone established by Qatar Foundation in Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP). As the R&D and Technology manager, he champions center’s vision of ‘Fueling innovation into Qatar’s Energy Ecosystem’ by driving more gas monetization through technical and research excellence in the space of Gas-to-X; Gas in GTX can be CO2, CH4 or C2​H6​; X can be LNG, GTL, chemicals or other products. As such, his team of researchers specializing in corrosion, CO2 utilization, gas conversion, catalysis, products / process development focus on specialist services to existing assets (LNG, Pearl GTL) and work towards realizing future assets. In his leadership, QSRTC remains steadfast in its support of Qatar National Vision 2030 and the Qatar National Research Strategy (QNRS). Mechanical engineer by training, Dr. Arora, received B. Tech from IIT Delhi and PhD from Rice University with focus on innovation, entrepreneurship, High Performance Computing (HPC) and numerical modeling of blood flow in artificial hearts. After a post-doc assignment in chemical engineering department at Rice, he joined Shell R&D in Shell Technology Center – Houston and has been with Shell research for 15 years. His research has been mostly in—multi-physics multi-scale numerical modeling of complex systems, high-temp high-voltage dielectric materials, fiber optics, scale-up of experiments, pilot design and project management.

Prof. Ahmed Abdel-Wahab, Professor, Texas A&M University at Qatar
Dr. Ahmed Abdel-Wahab is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University at Qatar, Doha, Qatar. His research primarily focuses on chemical, electrochemical, and photochemical processes for environmental and energy applications. This work includes development of advanced materials and processes for water and wastewater treatment, water splitting, CO₂ conversion, and engineered osmosis. This research has attracted significant external funding and has led to publication of more than 110 peer-reviewed articles in leading research journals, 10 book chapters, and more than 80 refereed conference publications/presentations. Dr. Abdel-Wahab is an editorial board member of the Water Process Engineering (Elsevier) and Emergent Materials (Springer) Journals. He is the co-founder and Technical Director of the Qatar Sustainable Water and Energy Utilization Initiative (QWE).  QWE works closely with numerous industry stakeholders in Qatar and has excellent links with relevant governmental stakeholders. Dr. Abdel-Wahab has served on several technical committees for a number of governmental and non-governmental agencies in Qatar and the region.

​Dr. Marcello Contestabile - Principal Economist, Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute – Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Dr. Marcello Contestabile is Principal Economist at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, where he leads techno-economic and policy research, and Visiting Fellow at Imperial College London. Originally an electrochemist with experience developing lithium-ion batteries for the portable electronics market in the early 2000s, over the last 18 years he has conducted extensive techno-economic and policy analysis of low-emission road transport technology, particularly battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and related infrastructure. Marcello has an MSc and PhD in energy policy and technology from Imperial College London, where he served as a Research Fellow and held research grants for a value in excess of £1M. While at Imperial he was also seconded to the UK’s Office for Low Emissions Vehicle. He also worked as a Research Fellow at KAPSARC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and as a Managing Consultant at specialist firm E4tech in London.

Cornelius Matthes, Chief Executive Officer, Dii Desert Energy/MENA Hydrogen Alliance
Cornelius is a well-respected leader and investor in the renewable energy industry and built several successful clean energy businesses and start-ups within Middle East and Africa. He has extensive board level experience from 10 years in Deutsche Bank (among others, youngest board member in Deutsche Bank Italy Group) and several leading renewable energy organisations and associations via pro bono work as well as different startup companies. By building the international shareholder and partner network of Dii (Desertec Industrial Initiative), he was at the forefront of the renewable energy revolution in North Africa and the Middle East. A keen entrepreneur and investor in emerging markets with recognitions such as “Solar Pioneer 2015” for the Middle East, he is lecturing at several universities including St. Gallen and is a regular speaker at international conferences. He holds an MBA (Dipl. Kaufmann) from University of Passau, and speaks German, English, Italian, French and Russian.
His experience ranges from M&A transactions, asset management, developing utility scale renewable energy projects (including mid-market with private PPAs), pay-as-you-go solar to energy efficiency, including ESCO projects and new business models. Some of the projects and companies were executed in challenging settings or countries. He has led sizable organizations both in startup environments and blue-chip companies and has raised funds from angel investments to USD 100m+ projects with institutional investors. “I am glad to be able to work in renewable energy which is also my passion – we can genuinely make an impact with many different things and help people, to make our planet a better place. Having new challenges every day is fantastic and many more mountains to be climbed!”

Martijn Coopman, Program Manager of the Energy transition, Port of Rotterdam
Martijn Coopman is Program Manager of the Energy transition at the Port of Rotterdam Authority, currently working in the Hydrogen team. Martijn graduated as Mechanical Engineer from the Technical University of Delft and worked in various ports and shipping related companies through which he has gained knowledge and experience of a broad range of activities in and around ports. Previously working as Project Manager on the Dutch CCS project Porthos he is now responsible for setting up future supplychains of Hydrogen from overseas to Europe via Rotterdam.