Prof. Hala Zreiqat
Hala Zreiqat AM is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Sydney and Director of the Australian Research Council’s Training Centre for Innovative BioEngineering. She leads pioneering research developing innovative biomaterials, devices and 3D-printing technologies for tissue regeneration, as well as novel nanospheres for the delivery of drugs, cells and growth factors to repair damaged tissues and organs. This work has led to several patents and partnerships with industry.
Highly recognised for her research, Professor Zreiqat is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health & Medical Sciences, the Australian Academy of Technology & Engineering, and the International Orthopaedic Research Societies. She was the second Australian to become a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University. She has been a Senior Research Fellow of the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council for many years and has held honorary professorial positions at universities in the US, Europe and China. In 2020 she was acknowledged as one of Australia’s ‘most innovative engineers’.
Her honours and awards in the last three years include: Member of the Order of Australia; King Abdullah II Order of Distinction of the Second Class (highest civilian honour bestowed by the King of Jordan, her country of birth); New South Wales Premier’s Woman of the Year (state government), Eureka Prize for Innovative Use of Technology (Australian Museum); and Payne-Scott Professorial Distinction (University of Sydney).
Many years before founding the IDEAL Society, Professor Zreiqat established another, highly successful international entity: the Alliance for Design & Application in Tissue Engineering (2006). This is a research network that has expanded under her leadership to include leading scholars from universities in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Ms Hiba Qasas
Hiba Qasas is the Head of Secretariat for the Principles for Peace Initiative at Interpeace. Prior to this role, Ms. Qasas served at the United Nations for 16 years. Her latest assignment was as Chief of the Crisis Prevention and Response Office of UN Women in Geneva. Prior to that she served as the UN Women Country Representative in Iraq, and as the Head of the Middle East and North Africa Section in UN Women’s Headquarters in New York. Ms. Qasas has 18 years of experience in policy, programming and partnerships in development, peace and humanitarian contexts. Prior to joining UN Women, she worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the country and HQ levels and as part of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Response. She managed a broad range of programmes in the areas of resilience, peace and security, education, women’s empowerment, crisis prevention and recovery, and provided political and programme guidance to field offices. Ms.Qasas is the co-convenor of the IDEAL Society, a leadership initiative by Harvard University, Radcliffe Institute and the University of Sydney and is a visiting lecturer the European School for Advanced Studies in International Cooperation and Development at the University of Pavia, Italy. Ms Qasas is a Palestinian national and holds a Master of Sciences in International Cooperation for Development from the European School for Advanced Studies, University of Pavia, Italy.
Dr. Fawwaz Habbal
Fawwaz Habbal is the Executive Dean for Education and Research and Senior Lecturer at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Dr. Habbal joined Harvard Engineering in 2002 as the Associate Dean for Academic Planning and was instrumental in the development of the intellectual direction for bioengineering and electrical engineering at SEAS. In 2007, he became the Executive Dean of SEAS. One major interest has been expanding the curriculum that enables students’ creativity and entrepreneurship; this includes the conception and development of the collaborative Master’s in Design Engineering with the Harvard Graduate School of Design, launched Fall of 2016. He also teaches courses in design engineering, electrical and mechanical engineering, nanofabrication, NMES, photonics devices and microfluidics. He is a member of the Applied Physics research group at SEAS, and is the Director of the Graduate Engineering Studies.
Prior to joining Harvard, Dr. Habbal worked in industry and became Senior Research, Engineering Fellow, and Corporate VP at Polaroid Corporation. At Polaroid, he was responsible for research and product design. He was also tasked to develop the electronic imaging business group. After leaving Polaroid, he established 3 start-ups in electronic imaging for the mobile market.
Dr. Habbal has significant publications in materials science, electronics, imaging and nanophotonics. He did postdoctoral research in Raman spectroscopy at the University of Colorado and was senior research fellow at Harvard before his industrial career. Dr. Habbal earned a BS in Mathematics, a PhD in Physics and has several business degrees.
