Erik Stenehjem is Executive Director of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer at Qatar Foundation. Before joining QF he was Executive Director of the Intellectual Property and Partnerships office at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for six years. He was also the Technology and Innovation Advisor to the governor of Oregon, and has always been engaged in understanding and modelling the development of knowledge-based economies.

Mr. Gray Handley is currently the NIAID Associate Director for International Research Affairs and coordinates and facilitates international research activities for the US National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, ensuring that the institute has a well-integrated, scientifically-productive programme of international research cooperation. Here he talks about a new funding collaboration between NIAID and QNRF.

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.

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.

Born and raised in Qatar, and with a US education in molecular biology, Ms. Riham Daher has worked at QNRF for nearly five years. She says she is proud to work for the first funding mechanism of its kind in the region and that it's the unique Programs of QNRF that make it a vital research connection point, worldwide.

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.

Majd F. Sakr, Ph.D., is the Assistant Dean for Research at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q). He is also the co-founder of the Qatar Cloud Computing Center. In addition to working at CMU-Q and Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, he has held appointments at the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut and at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey. His research specializations include data-intensive scalable computing, computer micro-architecture, compiler optimizations, scientific computing, embedded systems, reconfigurable systems and human-robot interaction.

Dr. Mark Weichold was appointed Dean of Texas A&M University at Qatar in January 2007. As a former engineer for companies in the US and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University holding three US patents related to electronic devices and fabrication, he brings a wealth of academic and industry experience to his role in Qatar.

Professor Hatem El-Shanti is the Managing Director of Shafallah Medical Genetics Center (SMGC) in Doha, Qatar. As a paediatrician and clinical geneticist, he has a particular interest in the biological mechanisms behind genetic disorders and birth defects in humans. His aim, with QNRF's help, is to make Shafallah a hub for molecular genetic research in human disease in Qatar and beyond.

Dr. Nesrin Ozalp is assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Sustainable Energy Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University at Qatar. She is the principal investigator of a number of research projects concerning cutting edge research on solar hydrogen production with zero emissions.