Ali Diabat
Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD Purdue University
Research Areas: optimization and operations, logistics, supply chain management, healthcare management, production planning
Dr. Ali Diabat received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan in 1999, M.Sc. degree in Operations Research from North Carolina State University, USA in 2003, and his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, USA in 2008. In June 2008, he joined Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi as an Assistant Professor of Engineering Systems and Management, and due to his exceptional performance, he was promoted to Associate Professor in June 2012, and to Full Professor in June 2016. Right after completing nine years at Masdar Institute, he joined New York University Abu Dhabi as a Global Network Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering.
Dr. Diabat’s research focuses on different applications of optimization and operations research: in particular, logistics and supply chain management, healthcare management, and production planning. Dr. Diabat has published 120 research journal papers and over 30 conference papers in leading journals and international conference proceedings. Many of his publications are co-authored with his own graduate students and, in many cases, with national and international collaborators. Dr. Diabat’s research has received about 5 million dollars of grant funding from different industries and collaborative proposals with academic institutions. His industry experience includes working in the oil shipping industry in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. After that, he held a position as a business analyst at United Airlines, and two positions as an operations research analyst in the banking and beverage industries, all in the United States.
Dr. Diabat has received several teaching awards for excellence, including an Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award and an Excellence in Teaching Award from Purdue University, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. Dr. Diabat was the recipient of the 2012 Excellence in Teaching Award from Masdar Institute, an achievement of special significance as it was the first award of its kind offered at the Institute. In 2014, he also received the Best Faculty Research Award from the Department of Engineering Systems and Management at Masdar Institute. Dr. Diabat currently serves as an Associate Editor of the SME Journal of Manufacturing Systems (JMS) and as an Area Editor of the Journal of Computers and Industrial Engineering, two of the leading journals in the field of Industrial Engineering published by Elsevier. He is a member of Mohammed Bin Rashid Academy of Scientists (MBRAS), a platform for the science community within the UAE that includes a selection of scientists and experts foreseeing the future of developments in the field of science and technology.