Department of Physics
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Dr. Nidhal Guessoum
Professor and Associate Dean of CAS
Nidhal Guessoum earned a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of California at San Diego, USA. Previous to his appointment at AUS, he had taught in Kuwait and Algeria and spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. His area of expertise is cosmic gamma-ray sources (the galactic center, accretion disks, bursts, etc.), but he has also written many articles and several books on issues related to science, education and Islam, such as “Islamic Astronomy” (the crescent observation problem, the Islamic calendar, etc.).
Dr. Ali Alnaser
Associate Professor
Ali Alnaser did his doctoral and postdoctoral studies at Western Michigan University and Kansas State University, USA, respectively. His research interests are centered around the use of ultra-strong lasers in photographing and manipulating experimentally the structure of matter on extremely short time scale. He has more than 12 years’ experience in teaching undergraduate physics courses and laboratories, and has co-supervised the research work of graduate students. He has published more than 35 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as those of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics. He has given many invited talks and contributed numerous papers at international atomics physics conferences.
Dr. Randa Asa'd
Assistant Professor
Randa Asa'd earned a PhD in Physics from University of Cincinnati, USA. She taught physics as a teaching assistant for three years prior to joining AUS. Her area of research is in observational astrophysics, namely obtaining the ages of star clusters in the Large Magelanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy from their integrated spectra. Her research observations are obtained using SOAR and Blanco telescopes in Chile. She is highly interested in teaching physics and astronomy using modern teaching styles.
Dr. Sami El-Khatib
Assistant Professor
Sami El-Khatib received a PhD in Physics from New Mexico State University, USA. His research activities as a postdoctoral research associate started at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, followed by working as a research fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) affiliated with University of Maryland. The bulk of his research is currently proceeding in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory and NIST Center for Neutron Research on studying magnetism of strongly correlated electron systems and transition metal perovskites. He has published more than 20 referred articles during the course of his career.
Dr. Nasser Hamdan
Professor and Interim HOD
Nasser Hamdan earned a PhD in Physics from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He has taught physics for 20 years at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and at AUS. He worked as a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, USA, for more than two years and had visiting positions at the National High Magnetic Laboratory, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA, and at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, USA. His research interest is in solid experimental state physics and material science: nano-materials, organic solar cells, magnetic materials and semiconductors, high-temperature superconductivity and x-ray spectroscopy.
Dr. Asad Hasan
Professor
Asad Hasan earned his PhD in Experimental Nuclear Physics from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA. Dr. Hasan has taught a variety of physics courses at different levels at AUS and abroad. His areas of research are: the experimental study of heavy-ion reactions; a study of the formation, equilibration and the deexcitation processes of the compound nucleus formed in fusion-fission collisions, and a study of atomic and molecular interactions; and a study of charge-transfer processes of recoil ions in slow collisions with molecular gases, where single-electron capture processes are the dominant reaction channels.
Dr. Tariq Majeed
Associate Professor
Tariq Majeed earned a PhD in Space Science from York University, Ontario, Canada. His expertise is in the areas of data analysis and modeling of both the terrestrial and the outer planetary atmospheres. He has taught several basic and advanced physics and environmental science courses. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a research scientist on several space-related projects for institutions such as Computational Physics, Inc., (Virginia, USA), the University of Arizona, Southwest Research Institute and the University of Michigan. Dr. Majeed has also received both internal and external research grants to support his research and scholarly activities.
Dr. Said Sakhi
Associate Professor
Said Sakhi earned a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Montreal, Canada. His research interest is at the interface between condensed matter and particle physics, where he applies techniques from quantum field theory to investigate quantum phase transitions in two dimensions, the fractional quantum Hall effect and the dynamics of Cooper pairs and vortices in Josephson junction arrays. Prior to his appointment at AUS, he was a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia and a research associate at the University of Concordia in Montreal.
Dr. Yousef Salamin
Professor
Yousef Salamin earned his PhD in Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. Prior to joining AUS, he taught undergraduate and graduate physics at Birzeit University in Palestine and Freiburg University in Germany. His research work gets over 100 annual citations and has been recognized by an Abdel Hameed Shoman Prize for Young Arab Scientists, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Program) Guest Lecturer Fellowship, and a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development. His current research interests focus on laser-acceleration of particles for medical and industrial applications.
Dr. Raza Syed
Assistant Professor
Raza M. Syed earned a PhD in Theoretical Particle Physics from Northeastern University, Massachusetts, USA. He has a deep passion for teaching physics and enjoys pushing his students’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills to the maximum. His current research focus is in building unified models of particle interactions that utilize mainly the framework of supersymmetric grand unification theory using the gauge group SO (10). In his spare time he likes to read as much as possible on his favorite subject outside of physics—human psychology.
Naveed Abbasi
Lab Assistant
Naveed Abbasi is currently enrolled in the Master of Science in Mechatronics program at AUS. His area of research are semiconductor devices and control techniques for motors. Currently his research involves working with Gaussian laser beams for vibration characterization. He has also worked as a testing and commissioning trainee engineer in an electromechanical company.
Diane Hodge
Lab Instructor
Diane Hodge earned Master of Education in Secondary Education specializing in assistive technology from the University of Guam, and a bachelor’s degree in physics and Spanish from Beloit College, USA. She has taught secondary and post-secondary students for more than 10 years on the US mainland, on Guam, and in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Her areas of teaching interest include curriculum development of instructional materials and assessment tools for expressive language related to critical analysis and deductive reasoning for both native English speaking and English as a Second Language students.
Mohammed Idrees
Lab Instructor
Mohammed Idrees earned a master of science degree from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. He worked as physics teacher and the school supervisor at the Central School, Dubai for 17 years. He has also worked as lecturer in physics at Anwar-ul-uloom College in Hyderabad, India.
Mazhar Iqbal
Lab Instructor
Mazhar Iqbal earned a Master of Science in Physics from the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He has taught physics and laboratory courses for more than 13 years at different colleges and universities. His areas of research interest are X-ray fluorescence techniques in heritage and archeology, air pollution, and the study of ozone by using electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesonde.
Faisal Masood
Lab Instructor
Faisal Masood earned a Master of Science in Physics from Bhopal University, India. He had taught in physics department in Saifia College, Bhopal, India, and worked as research engineer in the Optical Communication Research Group for Nortel Networks UK Ltd. in Harlow, England. He has also worked as physics teacher and science supervisor at Al Ansar School in Sharjah.
Isra Riffat Siry
Instructor
Isra Riffat Siry earned an MPhil in Physics from Keele University, UK. She has taught in physics and math departments for more than 15 years at institutions such as Stoke-on-Trent College, UK; American University in Dubai; and Sharjah University. Her areas of research and teaching interest are astrophysics; the research was mainly about detecting the extended emission around the symbiotic stars. It used special program for data reduction and filtering out the discs of the stars to study the nebulae. The research used CCD (Charged Coupled Device) camera data for analysis. Prior to her academic career, she worked as an oil engineer (data analyst) at the oil company INOC.
