Alumni Affairs recently hosted the annual Alumni Lecture Series during WEP 2022. This exciting annual event provides alumni with an opportunity to return to KAUST as a presenter to showcase their research, discovery, innovations or other professional outcomes related to the annual WEP theme.

The very relevant theme of WEP 2022 was resilience, and alumni presenters talked about their own application of resilience in their professional areas of entrepreneurship, marine science, industry and academia. Our thanks to the following presenters for sharing their journeys of resilience:

Ameerah Bokhari - PhD ’18, MS ’11 - Ameerah is a Petroleum Scientist with Saudi Aramco. In 2021, she relocated from Dhahran to KAUST’s Aramco facilities.

Tariq Alturkestani - PhD ’20, MS ’14 – Tariq is an Entrepreneur, Co-founder and CEO of start-up SAEE, Saudi Arabia.

Muhammed Sameed - MS ’12 – Muhammed is Quantum Physicist, Antimatter Expert, Science Communicator, Entrepreneur and Startup Investor, Sameed is an Applied Physicist and Senior Fellow at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland.

Jessica Bouwmeester - PhD’13 – Jessica  is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Kaneohe, Hawaii (since 2018). Her research focuses on the reproductive physiology of corals and how that is affected by climate change.

David Brandes - MS ’10 – David is the former Managing Director and Co-Founder at Peace of Meat, Geneva, Switzerland.