Ashraf Khalil
Professor of Computer Science, College of Technological Innovation, Zayed University
Professor Khalil has over 20 years of experience in academia in diverse roles, spanning leadership, administration, research, and teaching, at top institutions in the UAE and USA. An active researcher, he has published over 50 Scopus publications in highly ranked journals and conferences and holds 2 research-developed patents. He is keenly familiar with the academic and research culture of the UAE, especially having served as the Director of Research for Abu Dhabi University for 6 years, a role that reports to the Provost. In addition to his achievements in academia and academic leadership, Prof. Khalil has extensive entrepreneurial experience, having founded four start-ups spanning E-commerce, InsurTech, EdTech and FinTech. In leading these start-ups, Prof. Khalil has gained intimate familiarity with the entrepreneurial and innovation echo system in the UAE and the region as well as extensive people skills. During his tenure as Director of Research, Prof. Khalil increased the research output 6-fold through developing and leading the execution of two cycles of university-wide research strategy. Additionally, Prof. Khalil increased the research budget more than 5-fold by building and fostering research collaborations between the university and both the private and public sectors. His research spans the fields of Bioinformatics, Quantum Computing, Privacy, Human-Computer Interaction, AI Ethics and Management Information System and has been awarded external grants from ADEK, National Electronic Security Agency, Google & Emirates Foundation.