Advisory Board

The NYUAD Water Research Center (WRC) Advisory Board is a select group of industry and government leaders who bridge the gap between academic innovation and real-world water security. By aligning our research with regional and global industrial needs, the Board ensures that our work directly supports the UAE Water Security Strategy 2036.

Strategic Mandate

Vision Alignment: Guiding the Center’s direction toward sustainable development and national security goals.

Translational Research: Facilitating the transition of laboratory breakthroughs into product development and pilot testing.

Cross-Sector Synergy: Connecting stakeholders from the water, energy, infrastructure, and agriculture sectors.

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.

Board Members

Our board comprises executive-level decision-makers and academic pioneers from the public and private sectors.