June 2016/Ramadan, 1437 Volume 7, Issue No. 9 جامعة الملك عبداهلل للعلوم والتقنية المملكة العربية السعودية،ثول King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
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2016 faculty promotions celebrated Page 6
Which way from here? Page 10 The self-watering greenhouse Page 12
Using STEAM to solve global challenges Page 14 Scalable Hierarchical Algorithms for eXtreme Computing 2016 workshop Page 16
KAUST signs agreement with Saudi Aviation Investigation Bureau Page 18 Be an agent for change: Celebrate World Environment Day Page 19
In brief On May 3, KAUST recognized the 250 staff, faculty, teachers and researchers who reached the five-year service milestone and have provided the University with their loyalty and dedication. An event to celebrate their achievements began at 10:45 a.m. in the Auditorium (bldg. 20). Visit http://thelens. kaust.edu.sa/ for more information.
A special thank you to Anastasia Khrenova, a web specialist in Academic Writing, who took the group photo on page 18 of the May 2016 issue of The Beacon. Khrenova's photo appeared in the article by David Murphy covering the University's third KAUST-NVIDIA workshop and second hackathon held on February 23, 24 and 25.
The Beacon Volume 7, Issue No. 9 PUBLISHED BY MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
The Beacon Staff Managing Editor: Nicholas Demille Arabic Editor: Salah Sindi English Editor: Caitlin Clark Design Lead: Hazim Alradadi Designer: Omnia Attallah Writers: David Murphy, Meres J. Weche Translator: Adel Alrefaie Photographer: Ginger Lisanti The Beacon is published monthly. Š King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
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The 2016 KAUST Workshop on Scalable Hierarchical Algorithms for Extreme Computing (SHAXC 2016) was held from May 9 to 11. Academics from around the world came to the KAUST campus from institutions such as UT Austin, UNC Chapel Hill, the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Newcastle University and Heidelberg University. A number of industry speakers also attended from Intel and NVIDIA. SHAXC 2016 was organized by the KAUST Extreme Computing Research Center (ECRC), with sponsorship from the KAUST Office of Research Services and the KAUST Industry Collaboration Program.
Congratulations to the 12 KAUST faculty members who are the recipients of the Support for Conferences and Workshops (CS) Round 2016. Each of the faculty members who received an award will host a KAUST research conference on campus funded by the Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) that is scheduled to take place in the upcoming fiscal year 2016/2017. The CS 2016 awardees are: newly named Director of the Solar and Photovoltaics Research Center Iain McCulloch; Director of the Upstream Petroleum Engineering Research Center Tadeusz Patzek; Director of the Computational Bioscience Research Center Vladimir Bajic; Associate Professor Muhammad Mustafa Hussain; Professor Nikolaos Hadjichristidis; Professor Valerio Orlando; Director of the Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Research Center Ingo Pinnau; Director of the Clean Combustion Research Center William Roberts; Professor Carlos Duarte; Director of the Water Desalination and Reuse Center TorOve Leiknes; Director of the Visual Computing Center Wolfgang Heidrich; and Assistant Professor Matteo Parsani.
The University held a Spring Graduation lunch on June 1 from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. in the Conference Center (bldg. 19). Approximately 100 guests and KAUST faculty and administration, including President JeanLou Chameau, attended the event to wish the graduates well in their futures.
KAUST was recognized on May 9 by Entrepreneur Middle East as the Education Institute of the Year at the second annual KSA Enterprise Agility Awards. BNC Publishing, part of the Entrepreneur MENA franchise, awarded organizations and individuals at an event in the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh.
The KAUST UQ school on Numerical Methods for Direct and Inverse Problems was held from May 22 to 28. Speakers included Raul Tempone and Abdul Lateef Haji Ali from the KAUST Center for Uncertainty Quantification in Computational Science and Engineering; Fabio Nobile, the CADMOS chair of scientific computing and uncertainty quantification at EPFL (Switzerland); AndrĂŠ Uschmajew, professor at the University of Bonn (Germany); Ajay Jasra, associate professor at the National University of Singapore; and Nuuti Hyvonen, associate professor at Aalto University (Finland).
Faculty and research scientists are invited to participate in the 2016 Saudi Research Science Institute (SRSI), a summer research internship program for academically talented high school students. SRSI 2016 will run from July 16 to August 27 this year. Prospective mentors must offer suitable five-week projects in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields that give the students a chance to experience research at KAUST. For more information, contact srsi@kaust.edu.sa.
Professor of Plant Science Mark Tester and postdoctoral fellow Sandra Schmoeckel from Tester's research group were recently interviewed by a leading scientific website about their ongoing research into enabling certain plants to thrive in sub-optimal soil conditions. Learn more here: http://bit.ly/1XzsdxI.
COMMENCEMENT
The holy month of Ramadan began on June 6 this year. Non-Muslim employees are asked to respect the practices of Muslim colleagues and refrain from eating, drinking and smoking in public areas during daytime hours. Designated facilities for non-fasting personnel will be available on campus.
The University's seventh annual Commencement ceremonies will be held on Friday, December 18, 2016 at 7:45 p.m. along the Discovery Walk between AlKhawarizmi (bldg. 1) and the University Library. A reception for graduates and guests will follow immediately afterwards in the University Library.
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Accolades
1. Muhammad Mustafa Hussain,
KAUST associate professor of electrical engineering, received the IEEE Region 5 Outstanding Individual Achievement Award for his achievements in 2015. Photo by Nicholas Demille.
2, 3. KAUST Associate
Professor of Material Science and Engineering Osman Bakr (2) and Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student Ahmed Alfadhel (3) appeared on the 2016 Arab Innovators Under 35 list.
4, 5. Jean M. J. Fréchet (4), KAUST
distinguished professor of chemical science and the University's vice president for research, and Charlotte A. E. Hauser (5), KAUST professor of bioscience, were elected as NAI Fellows.
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Muhammad Mustafa Hussain receives IEEE Individual Achievement Award
Ahmed Alfadhel and Osman Bakr featured as 2016 Arab Innovators Under 35
Muhammad Mustafa Hussain, KAUST associate professor of electrical engineering, received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Region 5 Outstanding Individual Achievement Award for his achievements in 2015. The award is given to individuals from Region 5 (the southwestern U.S.) for an outstanding accomplishment from the past year. He received the award during the IEEE Region 5 Annual Conference held in Kansas City, U.S. from April 8 to 10.
KAUST Associate Professor of Material Science and Engineering Osman Bakr and KAUST Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student Ahmed Alfadhel appeared on the 2016 Arab Innovators Under 35 list in April. The list is a regional edition of the outstanding innovators list produced by MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 list.
Hussain is a senior member of IEEE, an organization boasting more than half a million members all over the world. He studied at The University of Texas at Austin (U.S.) from 2003-2005, completing both his master’s degree and Ph.D. in solid-state electronics within the area of electrical and computer engineering there. Upon joining KAUST in 2009, he founded the University’s Integrated Nanotechnology Laboratory. He has 15 issued or pending patents, has won 18 research awards and both Intel and Samsung have adapted his work on CMOS technology. During the awards ceremony and banquet on April 9, IEEE Region 5 Awards and Recognition Chair Diane Bowen Collier noted Hussain was selected because of “his creative vision about the expansion of electronics and his leadership in the community through distinguished lectureship and editorialship.”
The 35 Innovators Under 35 list was established in 1999 and covers fields including biotechnology, computer hardware, transportation, energy, materials, communications and the internet. MIT Technology Review recognized five innovators under 35 at the “Time to Invest in Arab Youth and Their Innovations” conference, which took place at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) on April 14. The list aims to recognize the development of new technology or the creative application of current technologies to solve challenging problems that affect the world. The selection process for the 2016 Arab innovators included five judges from the science and technology fields and an editorial committee. Alfadhel was recognized for his research focusing on developing bioinspired sensors that mimic the touch capability of human skin and his co-founding of SONATE, a startup company that manufactures high-quality smart nanomaterials used in medicine, electronics and the energy industry. Bakr’s work in the design and self-assembly of hybrid organic-inorganic materials for breakthrough applications in solar energy and optoelectronic devices won him a place on the list.
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Professors Jean Fréchet and Charlotte Hauser elected NAI Fellows
Every year since 1995, June 17 is celebrated by the U.N. as the World Day to Combat Desertification. The day encourages and promotes public awareness of the effects of desertification and drought.
Follow these Twitter accounts to learn more about this environmentally important day: @UNCCD - The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)'s Twitter account profiles important steps taken by countries in response to desertification and drought. @IOM_MECC - The official Twitter account of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in the field of Migration, Environment and Climate Change covers how migration impacts the environment.
Charlotte A. E. Hauser, KAUST professor of bioscience, and Jean M. J. Fréchet, KAUST distinguished professor of chemical science and the University's vice president for research, have been elected to the rank of NAI Fellows by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
@WorldBank - The World Bank's official Twitter feed brings their mission of fighting poverty to the world, including tackling this issue through protecting the environment and promoting sustainable agricultural practices.
Hauser and Fréchet join an impressive list of Nobel laureates, presidents and senior leadership of research universities, inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, recipients of the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, recipients of the U.S. National Medal of Science, Lemelson-MIT prize recipients, AAAS Fellows and IEEE Fellows who have received the awards.
@FAOnews - The newsroom of the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) tweets about the organization's efforts to win the battle against hunger worldwide, with preventing desertification as a top priority.
Hauser and Fréchet attended the NAI Fellows Induction Ceremony on April 15 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia. The ceremony was part of the NAI Fifth Annual Conference held on April 14 and 15 in Washington, D.C. The conference is held each spring and includes networking opportunities with and presentations by some of the world's most renowned inventors and leadership from over 150 international research institutions. The theme for this year's conference was "Building on Foundations of Innovation." Hauser and Fréchet were also featured in the 2015 NAI Fellows Book produced prior to the conference.
@IUFRO - The Twitter feed for the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) gives updates about preventing desertification through advances in forest science.
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2016 faculty promotions celebrated Congratulations to our promoted faculty. Your ideas advance knowledge and fuel discoveries in our world.” - KAUST President Jean-Lou Chameau The latest cohort of promoted KAUST faculty represents the University’s intellectual contribution to pursue collaborative research and education that advances new knowledge and discovery. At a recognition dinner in honor of the 12 promoted faculty, KAUST President Jean-Lou Chameau said, “In the coming years, your global
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leadership will continue to carry forward our mission to advance science and technology through distinctive and collaborative research integrated with graduate education. In doing so, KAUST will be a catalyst for innovation, economic development and social prosperity in Saudi Arabia and throughout the world.”
Congratulations to the promoted faculty members for 2016: Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering Division Arnab Pain, promoted to the rank of Professor
Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering Division
Timothy Ravasi, promoted to the rank of Professor
Andrea Fratalocchi, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor Xin Gao, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor Diogo Gomes, promoted to the rank of Professor Atif Shamim, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor Basem Shihada, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor
Physical Science and Engineering Division Osman Bakr, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor* Aamir Farooq, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor Niveen Khashab, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor Sigurjon Jonsson, promoted to the rank of Full Professor Kazuhiro Takanabe, promoted to the rank of Associate Professor
*Effective July 1, 2015. All other promotions effective July 1, 2016. Photo by Nicholas Demille.
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Nature Index puts KAUST at the top of the Kingdom's drive to produce high-quality research Saudi Arabia has enjoyed the largest growth in the region with respect to high-quality research, as tracked by this year's Nature Index. The index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relationships compiled by Nature Publishing Group, in collaboration with Digital Science. It tracks contributions to articles published in a group of highly selective science journals chosen by an independent group of active researchers.
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Although a major part of KAUST publications are in engineering and technology, which are not tracked by this index, the performance of KAUST in the Nature Index places it in the leading position as number 1 in Saudi Arabia, representing about 75 percent of the science output of the country.
مؤشر نيتشر يضع جامعة الملك عبداهلل في صدارة العوامل الدافعة إلنتاج أبحاث عالية الجودة يف اململكة أشاد مؤشر نيتشر ( )Nature Indexبالنمو الكبير لألبحاث عالية الجودة في المملكة العربية السعودية وصنفها ضمن األكبر في المنطقة لهذا العالم .ويضم مؤشر نيتشر قاعدة بيانات لمؤلفات العلماء والباحثين وانتماءاتهم وعالقاتهم المؤسسية التي جمعها فريق نيتشر للنشر العلمي بالتعاون مع ديجتال ساينس ( .)Digital Scienceويرصد المؤشر المقاالت واألوراق البحثية للعلماء والدارسين وإسهاماتهم في مجموعة من المجالت العلمية الرائدة والمختارة بعناية بواسطة مجموعة مستقلة من الباحثين الناشطين.
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وعلى الرغم من أن المؤشر ال يرصد األعمال البحثية في مجاالت الهندسة والتقنية والتي تشكل الجزء األكبر من منشورات جامعة الملك عبداهلل للعلوم والتقنية ،إال أن أداء الجامعة وضعها في موقع الريادة محققة المرتبة األولى في المملكة العربية السعودية ،أي ما يعادل بنحو 75٪من الناتج العلمي للبالد.
Which way from here? A career planning workshop for early career scientists tackles tough questions When their KAUST journey is over, what's next for the University’s early career scientists? Answering this question was the goal of a recent career planning workshop in the Red Sea Research Center (RSRC) aimed at guiding postdoctoral fellows and research scientists in setting achievable career goals. The pilot workshop was organized by Jelena Bajic, program lead, researcher and postdoctoral support in Research Oversight and Planning, Carlos Duarte, professor of marine science and the Tarek Ahmed Juffali Research Chair in Red Sea Ecology, and Dr. Ivan Valiela, distinguished scientist at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. Workshop attendees performed a self-assessment by answering such questions as: Do I like where I am? What aspects of my work do I enjoy most? Where do I see myself in 10 years? What are my strengths? How can I improve my weaknesses? “Imagine running a marathon without any training,” said workshop attendee Isabelle Schulz, a postdoctoral fellow in the RSRC. “Obviously you would not make it to the finish line if you failed to assess the resources you needed on the day of the race or if you forgot to seek the assistance of a coach or mentor.” Attendees explored how postdoctoral fellows are generally well-prepared for work in many sectors and in a variety of jobs. Employers are attracted to trained problem solvers who hold a doctorate and who know how to work independently and intensively. “The workshop made me realize that continuing in academia is actually the alternative career—there are many other science-related jobs that will utilize the skills I picked up during my doctoral and postdoctoral years,” said RSRC postdoctoral fellow and workshop participant Yi Jin Liew.
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Postdoctoral fellows create their own opportunities by seeking informal teaching experiences or engaging in collaborations with researchers outside of their field of expertise—experiences that demonstrate essential skills such as careful planning and creativity. “The most important take-home message for me was that we have to create our own opportunities,” said workshop attendee Neus Garcias Bonet, a RSRC postdoctoral fellow. "Working at KAUST gives me the opportunity to pursue exciting research questions using state-of-the-art methods and to strengthen my research profile," said RSRC postdoctoral fellow and attendee Maren Ziegler.
1. Postdoctoral fellows (left to right) Yi Jin Liew, Isabelle Schulz, Maren Ziegler and Neus Garcias Bonet attended the recent career planning workshop on campus. Photo by Nicholas Demille. 2. Participants from the University's Red Sea
Research Center benefited from the recent career planning workshop. Back row (left to right): Professor Ivan Valiela, Professor Carlos Duarte, Hanan Almahasheer, Mie Winding, Jesus Arrieta, Jit Ern Chen, Vincent Saderne, Isabelle Schulz, Malika Kheireddine and Daffne Lopez Sandoval. Front row (left to right): Professor Susana Agusti, Yi Jin Liew, Jelena Bajic, Neus Garcias Bonet, Mohd I. Ansari, Surya P. Tiwari, Stamatina Isari, Gauri Mahadik, Peng Jin, Sreejith Kottuparambil, Maria Calleja Cortes and Andrea Anton Gamazo. Photo courtesy of the RSRC.
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ورشة عمل التخطيط المهني مركز ابحاث البحر األحمر
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أقام مركز أبحاث البحر األحمر ( )RSRCفي جامعة الملك عبداهلل للعلوم والتقنية ورشة عمل عن التخطيط المهني تهدف إلى إرشاد زمالء ما بعد الدكتوراه والباحثين في تحديد األهداف التي يرغبون تحقيقها في مسيرتهم المهنية من خالل الخبرات التعليمية الرسمية والتعاون مع الباحثين من خارج مجالهم وتطوير المهارات األساسية مثل التخطيط الدقيق واإلبداع. ونظم ورشة العمل كل من جيلينا بايك ،رئيسة برنامج تخطيط ودعم الباحثين وزمالء ما بعد الدكتوراه في الجامعة ،والبروفيسور كارلوس دوارتي ،أستاذ كرسي طارق أحمد الجفالي لعلوم األحياء البحرية في جامعة الملك عبداهلل ،والدكتور إيفان فاليال ،عالم متميز في مختبر وودز هول للعلوم البيولوجية البحرية. وأتاحت ورشة العمل الفرصة للحضور إجراء تقييم ذاتي عبر اإلجابة عن األسئلة التالية :هل تشعر باالرتياح في عملك الحالي؟ ما هي جوانب عملك التي تستمتع بها أكثر؟ أين تجد نفسك في السنوات العشر المقبلة؟ ما هي مواطن القوة لديك؟ كيف يمكن تحسين نقاط ضعفك؟ تقول إيزابيل شولتز ،وهي زميلة ما بعد الدكتوراه في مركز أبحاث البحر األحمر: "تخيل أن تشارك في سباق ماراثون دون أي تدريب مسبق .من الواضح أنك لن تبلغ خط النهاية دون تقييمك للموارد التي تحتاجها في يوم السباق أو الحصول على المساعدة من مدرب أو مرشد". تكيف زمالء ما كما تطرقت ورشة العمل إلى العديد من المواضيع المهمة مثل ّ بعد الدكتوراه بصورة عامة للعمل في العديد من القطاعات والوظائف المختلفة،
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ً فضال عن انجذاب أصحاب العمل إلى الموظفين من حملة الدكتوراه والمدربين ً ً جيدا على حل المشكالت بشكل مستقل ومكثف. تدريبا يقول يي جين ليو وهو زميل ما بعد الدكتوراه في مركز أبحاث البحر األحمر وأحد حضور الورشة" :أدركت بعد حضوري لهذه الورشة أن المهارات التي اكتسبتها خالل عملي في فترة الدكتوراه وما بعد الدكتوراه تمكنني من العمل في مجاالت علمية متعددة وليس فقط في األوساط األكاديمية" .ويقول زميل ما بعد الدكتوراه نيوس غارسيا-بونيتا" :أكثر شيء تعلمته من هذه الورشة هو أننا نحن من نصنع الفرص ألنفسنا" . كما أشادت زميلة ما بعد الدكتوراه مارين زيغلر بورشة العمل بصورة خاصة وجامعة الملك عبداهلل بصورة عامة حيث قالت" :تمكنت من خالل عملي في جامعة الملك عبداهلل من القيام بأبحاث علمية مثيرة باستخدام أساليب وطرق متطورة كان لها أبلغ األثر في تعزيز وتقوية مهاراتي البحثية".
The self-watering greenhouse By Ryan Lefers
Food security and water security are completely dependent upon each other. The agriculture industry and the production of food consumes somewhere between 70 to 80 percent of all fresh water used in the world, and therefore any discussion about water security must include consideration of the water used to grow food.
If ultimately successful on a commercial scale, the system could reduce the amount of water required to grow 1 kilogram of tomatoes and lettuce from a world average of about 200 liters of fresh water to 1 liter. While consumers worldwide are becoming more aware of their home water use, fewer consumers are aware that the biggest portion of their total water footprint comes not from the water they use but from the food that they eat. For example, the estimated world average amount of water required to produce a hamburger is approximately 2,400 liters. In contrast, an average 10-minute shower uses approximately 100 liters of water.
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vapor eventually condenses and falls back to Earth as rain, but rarely falls in the same location from where it evaporated. The growing of crops in greenhouses offers a unique opportunity to recapture water vapor. Because a greenhouse is a closed environment, the evapotranspiration of water vapor can be contained. Venting has traditionally been added to greenhouses to prevent the buildup of heat and/or humidity. Researchers at the University's Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC) are evaluating a new solution: recovery of the water vapor for reuse as irrigation water within the greenhouse. This closes the water cycle within the greenhouse and eliminates the need for additional irrigation water on a daily basis.
Recovering fresh water The specific solution under evaluation by the WDRC is the use of salt-based liquid desiccants to capture water vapor and the subsequent desalination of these solutions to recover the fresh water. KAUST Ph.D. candidate and professional engineer Ryan Lefers is leading the research efforts under the direction of TorOve Leiknes, director of the WDRC and KAUST professor of environmental science and engineering, and in partnership with other researchers at KAUST and institutions in the U.K. and the U.S.
Greenhouses and crop growth
Bench-scale efforts in the laboratory have already shown the potential to dehumidify air using liquid desiccants circulated within hollow fiber membranes. Vacuum membrane distillation has also been used successfully to recover both fresh water and re-usable desiccant solution from spent desiccant solutions.
Water is used in agriculture primarily to grow plants. Plants collect liquid water via their roots and release humidity to the atmosphere from their leaves in the form of vapor in a process known as transpiration. Transpiration is combined with evaporation from the soil in a complete process termed evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration is why we lose so much liquid fresh water in the production of food. In nature, this water
Efforts are underway to make the process more efficient and to evaluate scale up for possible pilot-scale implementation. If ultimately successful on a commercial scale, the liquid desiccant water recycling system could reduce the amount of water required to grow 1 kilogram of the tomatoes and lettuce in our salads from a world average of about 200 liters of fresh water to 1 liter.
THE BEACON | JUNE 2016
KAUST Ph.D. candidate Ryan Lefers works in the University's Water Desalination and Reuse Center to find innovative solutions to recover fresh water.
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Using STEAM to solve global challenges How do you solve the global challenges related to food, water and urbanization? The team behind the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) Innovation Challenge at KAUST thinks they have the answer—put smart people in a room and give them 48 hours to present solutions to these problems. The Innovation and Economic Development Department (I&ED) at KAUST hosted the STEAM Innovation Challenge on April 29 and 30, in partnership with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). In 48 hours, teams of students from across the Kingdom moved their ideas from the drawing board to the boardroom, formally presenting solutions to a panel of experts. Prizes were awarded to the top three teams. All 126 students chosen for the program had a background in science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics and came from KAUST, King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Effat University, Umm al-Qura University (UQU) and the University of Business and Technology (UBT).
We are delighted with the involvement levels and ideas that came out of the first STEAM Innovation Challenge." - Gordon McConnell, head of the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center
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Creating the innovators of tomorrow STEAM grew out of the recognition by KAUST and the IDB that some of the challenges facing the Kingdom are issues of local, regional and global significance. Addressing these challenges requires the best work from the brightest minds, students the STEAM challenge aims to identify and develop. Teams of between four and five members presented solutions that were technically feasible, financially sound, economically viable and environmentally friendly. The winning presentations considered the needs of Saudi Arabia, with scalability beyond the Kingdom as a key factor in the selection of the winners. "We are delighted with the involvement levels and ideas that came out of the first STEAM Innovation Challenge," said Gordon McConnell, head of the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center, whose team designed and delivered the program. "The two-day event was designed to give students a view of real world problems and to help them understand the process of ideation and framing their ideas so they could be communicated to the judges and audience, all the while working with team members they had never met before and under very tight time pressures. The feedback from the students and the visiting faculty members, as well as from the IDB, was tremendous, and we believe that all these students left the event with a new view of the world and how they could make an impact in it."
1. Teams of between four and five students from across the Kingdom work together during the University's STEAM Innovation Challenge to solve problems of global significance.
برنامج تحدي االبتكار (ستيم) لمواجهة التحديات العالمية كيف يمكننا إيجاد حلول حاسمة للتحديات العالمية المتعلقة بالغذاء والماء والتوسع العمراني؟ يقترح فريق برنامج تحدي االبتكار (ستيم )STEAMفي جامعة الملك عبداهلل للعلوم والتقنية إجابة ذكية على هذا السؤال وهي :ضع مجموعة من األفراد األذكياء في غرفة وأمهلهم 48ساعة لتقديم حلول لهذه المشاكل. وفي هذا السياق ،استضاف قسم االبتكار والتنمية االقتصادية في جامعة الملك عبداهلل برنامج تحدي االبتكار (ستيم) في الفترة من 29الى 30ابريل ،بالتعاون مع البنك اإلسالمي للتنمية ( .)IDBحيث تم تشكيل فرق مختلفة من الطلبة من جميع أنحاء المملكة وتم ً رسميا إلى لجنة من الخبراء .وضم كل فريق ما بين أربعة إعطاؤهم 48ساعة لتقديم أفكارهم ً حلوال عملية مبتكرة تلبي احتياجات المملكة من الناحية التقنية، إلى خمسة أعضاء قدموا ً فضال عن كونها صديقة للبيئة .وتم منح جوائز قيمة للفرق الثالثة األولى الفائزة. واالقتصادية
رعاية مخترعي المستقبل نما فريق برنامج تحدي االبتكار (ستيم) بفضل رعاية جامعة الملك عبداهلل للعلوم والتقنية والبنك اإلسالمي للتنمية من أجل الخروج بحلول لبعض التحديات التي تواجه المملكة والتي هي في نفس الوقت قضايا ذات أهمية محلية وإقليمية وعالمية .والتصدي لهذه التحديات يتطلب تعاون أفضل العقول والباحثين والطلبة المتميزين.
نبذة عن برنامج تحدي االبتكار (ستيم) برنامج تحدي االبتكار (ستيم) هو فعالية فريدة من نوعها ،تقام في جامعة الملك عبداهلل لمدة يومين .ويشارك فيها فرق متعددة التخصصات من طلبة الجامعة بصورة مكثفة إلى جانب طلبة من الجامعات السعودية األخرى .ويتم اختيار الطلبة المتميزين في مجاالت العلوم والتقنية والهندسة والفنون والرياضيات بهدف تطوير وتقديم حلول واضحة المعالم للتحديات العالمية المهمة.
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1 Winners from KAUST and Saudi universities: The first-place winning team received a prize of $10,000 from the IDB: )Daniel Corzo (KAUST )Linah Hussain (KAU )Hibatullah Bensaid (Effat University The second-place winning team received a prize of $4,000 from I&ED: )Anmar Baitalmal (UQU )Malak Mousali (KAU )Truki Khursheed (UBT )Mona Alsomali (KAUST The third-place winning team received a prize of $2,500 from the KAUST Entrepreneurship Center: )Mahammed Nadershah (UBT )Tareq Ojemy (UQU )Shahrazad Emetennani (KAUST )Leena Almashat (KAU Eynas Balkhair (Effat University).
Scalable Hierarchical Algorithms for eXtreme Computing 2016 workshop By David Keyes From May 9 to 11, the University's Extreme Computing Research Center (ECRC) hosted the Scalable Hierarchical Algorithms for eXtreme Computing (SHAXC) 2016 international workshop on the KAUST campus. Participants from academia, the computer industry and industries that rely heavily on computation gathered to explore algorithmic road maps that promise to sustain the exponential increases in computational power that scientists and engineers have come to expect to improve the accuracy and fidelity of their simulations. SHAXC was sponsored by the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) and the KAUST Industry Collaboration Program and was organized by the ECRC. The ECRC’s mission is: (1) to perform basic research and develop algorithms and software that will enable today's applications to migrate to the exascale systems that are expected by early next decade; and (2) to enable the University's scientific and engineering simulation campaigns to exploit today's state-of-the-practice petascale systems, such as the KAUST supercomputer Shaheen XC40, which is currently ranked at #9 on the list of the world’s TOP500 supercomputers.
Computing power Computational power delivered to real-world applications— such as reservoir dynamics, molecular dynamics and aerodynamics—has increased by a factor of 1,000 over the past two decades. This has improved the predictive power of simulations, reducing design times and failures and lowering the cost of experiments. In these and other domains, to outcompute is to out-compete. However, this coveted acceleration is beginning to slow.
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Many are convinced that the evolving computing hardware used throughout high-end simulations and data analytics requires a new software infrastructure. Moore’s law of semiconductor technology is now maintained in the face of physical constraints by expanding processor count rather than increasing processor speed. Memory capacity and memory bandwidth fail to keep pace, so little new performance is realized for practically important algorithms that are often already memory-bound. In addition, the energy costs per operation are decreasing more slowly, which extrapolates to computers that we can engineer and afford to acquire but not to power up.
Mathematics for a new software infrastructure Seeds of a new scientific software infrastructure were planted decades ago, and much of the mathematics has been developed. How effectively, however, does the math map onto the increasingly hierarchical memory systems and dynamic runtime systems offered to today’s programmers? International experts joined in to discuss this topic at SHAXC. "Scalable” refers to algorithms that can, for example, keep the time of a simulation fixed as the resolution of the simulation grows, by adding processors (“workers”) in proportion to the work. Not all algorithms are scalable because some tasks depend upon others to be completed first. “Hierarchical” refers to algorithms that obtain scalability by considering a single problem at a hierarchy of representations of different sizes, attempting to accomplish most of the
1. The University's Extreme Computing Research Center (ECRC) hosted the Scalable Hierarchical Algorithms for eXtreme Computing (SHAXC) 2016 international workshop from May 9 to 11.
1 progress on the coarser, smaller and therefore cheaper representations while ultimately obtaining the accuracy of the finest representation. Five of these algorithms have been popularized over the past 60 years (roughly one per decade), including the Fast Fourier Transform; the Multigrid method; the Fast Multipole method; Sparse Grids; and Hierarchically Low-rank Matrix methods (or “H-matrices”). KAUST organized SHAXC workshops in 2012 and 2014 that highlighted the mathematical interplay between these methods. These earlier workshops suggested investing KAUST resources in developing high performance implementations of two of the algorithms.
Opportune workshop timing The SHAXC’16 workshop took place at a time when there are significant starts around the world on the software implementations of Fast Multipole and H-matrices that will be critical to the performance of many scientific codes as kernels in simulations based on formulations of partial differential equations, integral equations, interacting particles, covariance matrices in statistics and beyond on future computer systems.
Exascale challenges The challenges of the exascale include reducing communication; reducing synchronization; increasing concurrency to exploit efficient manycore and GPU processing elements; and incorporating resilience into the algorithms themselves, rather than leaving the entire burden of resilience to the hardware. Advances in these areas simultaneously reduce time to solution and rate of power consumption. There is evidence that fast multipole methods and their H-matrix cousins fare well on emerging architectures. Even apparently highly synchronous methods like multigrid have defied pessimistic prognoses and scaled to the edge of today’s hardware by continued algorithmic adaptations. It was therefore opportune to bring together leading developers and practitioners of hierarchical algorithms of diverse stripes in one workshop aimed at sharing knowledge, practice, projections about architecture targets and code— possibly inspiring one of today’s young scholars to discover the next scalable hierarchical algorithm!
Successfully migrating these kernels to the computational environment of the exascale—quadrillions of bytes of memory and quadrillions of operations per second—will create paths that many full applications can follow, just as, a generation earlier, standardized dense and sparse linear algebra libraries led full scientific applications into efficient use of today’s distributed memory computers.
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مكتب تحقيقات الطيران يوقع اتفاقية مع الجامعة لالستفادة من خدماتها البحثية جدة 26 ،أبريل :2016وقع مكتب تحقيقات الطيران ( )AIBفي المملكة العربية السعودية اتفاقية مع جامعة الملك عبداهلل للعلوم والتقنية ( )KAUSTالستخدام مرافقها المتطورة وخبرتها البحثية في مجال التحقيق في حوادث الطيران. ومكتب تحقيقات الطيران هو مؤسسة حكومية مستقلة تهدف لتطوير أمن وسالمة المالحة الجوية في المملكة العربية السعودية وإجراء تحقيقات مستقلة في حوادث الطيران .وتُ رفع تقارير مكتب تحقيقات الطيران مباشرة إلى معالي األستاذ سليمان بن عبد اهلل الحمدان ،رئيس الهيئة العامة للطيران المدني ( .)GACAوتهدف هذه االتفاقية مع جامعة الملك عبداهلل إلى تقليل االعتماد على الموارد الدولية واالستفادة من الخبرات والمرافق المتطورة داخل المملكة العربية السعودية. وقال جاستن ماينار ،مدير عام المختبرات والمرافق األساسية في جامعة الملك عبداهلل بهذه المناسبة" :تمتلك جامعة الملك عبداهلل مختبرات أساسية ومرافق بحثية متطورة ومجهزة بأحدث التجهيزات عالمية المستوى والتي تم إنشاؤها لتالئم احتياجات المملكة .وستساهم مختبراتنا بدعم مهمة مكتب تحقيقات الطيران في تطوير سالمة المالحة الجوية والتحقيق في حوادث الطائرات .وهذا التعاون هو داللة واضحة على التزام جامعة الملك عبداهلل نحو شركائها داخل المملكة من خالل تمكينهم من الوصول إلى مراكزها ومختبراتها البحثية من أجل خدمة األولويات والمصلحة الوطنية". وتحدث األستاذ عبداإلله عثمان فلمبان ،مدير عام مكتب تحقيقات الطيران عن مهام ودور مكتبه في تحسين سالمة الطيران عبر إجراء التحقيقات النزيهة وتقديم توصيات السالمة ً وفقا للمعايير الدولية ،ولقد اخترنا الدخول الالزمة ،حيث قال" :يعمل مكتب تحقيقات الطيران في شراكة مع جامعة الملك عبداهلل لما تتمتع به من خبرات علمية رائدة وإمكانات متميزة للمساعدة في الوقاية من حوادث المالحة الجوية .إن البيانات والنتائج القيمة التي ستقدمها لنا جامعة الملك عبداهلل ستكون مهمة لنا وستساعدنا على الحد من وقوع المزيد من الحوادث، وبالتالي تحسين سالمة الطيران المدني". يذكر أن مكتب تحقيقات الطيران هو مؤسسة سعودية حكومية مستقلة تقدم تقاريرها مباشرة إلى رئيس الهيئة العامة للطيران المدني ( .)GACAويتولى مكتب المدير العام المهام التنفيذية واإلدارية ومهام القيادة العامة للمؤسسة ،بما في ذلك إدارة اإلنتاج ووضع االستراتيجيات وخدمات الدعم.
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KAUST signs agreement with Saudi Aviation Investigation Bureau KAUST signed an agreement on April 26 to allow the Saudi Aviation Investigation Bureau (AIB) to use its advanced facilities and research expertise in the event of aviation incidents. The agreement decreases dependence on international resources while utilizing expertise and facilities within the Kingdom. AIB, an independent government organization, advances safety and conducts independent investigations into aviation incidents in the Kingdom. AIB reports directly to H.E. Sulaiman Al-Hamdan, the chairman of the board of directors of the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). “The Core Laboratories and advanced facilities at KAUST are well-equipped to support AIB in aircraft accident and incident investigations. Our state-of-the-art laboratories were established with the needs of Saudi Arabia in mind, and this collaboration with AIB reinforces our commitment to make our laboratories accessible to our in-Kingdom partners to serve national priorities,” said Justin Mynar, KAUST director of Core Laboratories and Major Facilities. “AIB investigations are conducted in accordance with international standards, and we chose to partner with KAUST for their leading scientific expertise and capabilities to aid in the fact finding and validation of data/theory of accidents and incidents. The data and results from KAUST will provide AIB with valuable information to generate safety recommendations, thus improving civil aviation safety,” said AIB Director General Abdulelah Felemban.
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1. KAUST signed an agreement on April 26 to allow the Saudi Aviation Investigation Bureau to use its facilities and research expertise in the event of aviation incidents. 2. The Office of Enrichment Programs team had their office certified platinum in April by the University's Green Office Certification program.
Be an agent for change: Celebrate World Environment Day
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By Jacqueline Piper and Caitlin Clark World Environment Day (WED), held on June 5 this year and hosted by the United Nations, serves as the “people’s day” to take care of the Earth and reduce humanity's impact on the globe. WED began in 1974 and is now held in over 100 countries worldwide. The global movement focuses on a different theme each year—this year’s theme is “Go Wild for Life” and centers on the illegal wildlife trade.
sustainability, we wanted our office’s event logistics and actions to reflect the theme, and we achieved this through a variety of means for the community, such as reusable cups and water bottles offered at WEP events and the WeWatt bicycle mobile phone charging station in the University Library. We feel these made it fun and enjoyable for us to find new ways to reduce our waste and ‘go green.’”
Reduce, reuse, recycle At KAUST, a good way to begin taking care of the Earth is to reduce, reuse and recycle. In 2015, the KAUST community consumed an estimated 8,500 water bottles per day, or 3 million mixed polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles over the year. Choosing to use a reusable water bottle and refilling it from the kitchen tap will greatly reduce waste and energy use, and is one way to make a significant impact.
Green Office Certification program The KAUST Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) team helps the community to make a difference during the workday by organizing the University’s Green Office Certification program (GOCP). HSE supports offices in a pledge to minimize waste and energy use, move towards alternative transport and raise sustainability awareness. GOCP began on Earth Day in 2014 and is a voluntary program designed to reduce office environmental footprints as part of the campus-wide overall drive towards sustainability. Offices can achieve silver, gold or platinum certification depending on the percentage of benchmarks they reach. Each section—energy conservation, waste minimization, sustainability awareness and alternative transportation—has points assigned to it. Achieving 40% of the points earns the office a silver rating, 65% a gold rating and 80% a platinum rating. A “champion” appointed by each office leads the office through the process.
Office of Enrichment Programs achieves certification The Office of Enrichment Programs is the latest office to be certified platinum at KAUST on April 21 this year. “I had long been an advocate of sustainability and sustainable practices prior to joining KAUST,” said Marie-Laure Boulot, manager of Enrichment Programs. “I combined my personal commitment of ‘going green’ and my job with Enrichment Programs to bring sustainability-themed content to the community, as well as bringing sustainable practices to our community. With this year’s Winter Enrichment Program’s (WEP) theme of climate change and
[A]ll offices in KAUST should aim for GOCP certification, as the more offices that are certified, the more sustainable KAUST will become.” - Shireen Hammoud, projects administrator Boulot added that she “wanted to find the right time after our busy WEP program for the Enrichment Programs team to get involved in GOCP,” and nominated Shireen Hammoud, projects administrator from the Enrichment Programs team, as the office’s champion. “I wanted to make sure our office’s team members, who all come from different cultures and backgrounds, shared the same values of ‘going green’ and were excited about joining the certification program,” said Boulot. “It was perfect timing, as we were all enriched by the themes of WEP 2016.”
An ‘exciting’ process “The process of gaining certification was exciting, joyful and easy,” said Hammoud. “The GOCP coordinators were very helpful and supportive throughout the whole process, and so were my colleagues. The whole team was actively involved in the certification from the beginning to completion.” Hammoud noted GOCP champions should be aware of the University’s Environmental Stewardship Policy. “This policy states that KAUST aims to be a leader among higher education institutions and communities in environmental sustainability. I believe that all offices in KAUST should aim for GOCP certification, as the more offices that are certified, the more sustainable KAUST will become,” she said. “Besides being fun and easy, the process only requires a few amendments in the office’s habits, and can have a great impact on the environment.”
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My University Ibrahima N'Doye Ibrahima N'Doye was born in Dakar, Senegal, and came to KAUST from Luxembourg, where he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg. He has a Ph.D. in automatic control from the University of Lorraine (France) and now works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Estimation, Modeling and Analysis (EMAN) research group of TaousMeriem Laleg-Kirati, KAUST assistant professor of electrical engineering. “My research interests at KAUST aim to develop efficient control strategies and estimation algorithms and to respond to important challenges that are engaging industry and society,” N'Doye said. “Examples include optimization of water desalination plants, control of distributed solar collector plants and characterization of brain activity.” N'Doye began his career working on the estimation of complex dynamic systems. “I was interested in combining control strategies and estimation concepts to the artificial pancreas for treatment of type 1 diabetes,” he explained. “KAUST attracted me because of the quality and diversity of the research community here and because of the University’s vision to be a destination for scientific and technological education and research.”
Where do you read The Beacon?
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KAUST football team wins this year’s ICD tournament By David Murphy Congratulations to the KAUST community football team for winning this year’s third annual International Organizations Football Championship. After an impressive run to the final, the KAUST team overcame the host ICD (Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector) team in the tournament final, which was held on May 1 in Jeddah. Special thanks go to the team's captain Mustafa Mousa, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering, for helping to organize the team. Congratulations to: 1. Octavio Salazar (Mexico) 2. Roberto Arrigoni (Italy) 3. Gordon Byron (Canada) 4. Hussain Alhaji (Saudi Arabia) 5. Rodrigo Telles (Brazil) (vice-captain) 6. Fethi Khaled (Tunisia) 7. Muneer Alabid (Saudi Arabia) 8. Davide Priante (Italy) (tournament top scorer with 11 goals) 9. Stephen Parkes (Australia) 10. Richard Davies (U.K.) 11. Mustafa Mousa (Egypt) (captain) 12. Nicolas Augsburg (Uruguay) 13. Rodrigo Lopez (Mexico) 14. Osama Bukhari (Saudi Arabia) 15. Abdulla Alshareef (Saudi Arabia) (coaching assistant) The University’s ICD tournament results:
This month’s submission comes from Matthieu Mulle, a research scientist in mechanical engineering in the University’s Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division. Every year, Mulle takes part in ski touring in the Pyrenees, practicing the sport with his son Axel. This year, Axel and Mulle planned to stay in a mountain refuge in the central Pyrenees, climbing different summits around it for five days. They almost cancelled the trip because there had been no snow, but a good turn in the weather favored them with heavy snow just before their cancellation.
Group results (April 15, 18 and 21) KAUST 7-0 Islamic Research and Training Institute KAUST 4-0 Ewann Global Residental Company KAUST 3-1 Islamic Development Bank Semi-final (April 27) KAUST 6-1 Anfaal Capital Final (May 1) KAUST 2-0 ICD
“When we arrived at the refuge, weather conditions were perfect, but the risk of avalanches was high,” Mulle said. “Fortunately, we had an experienced team and were equipped with quality safety and search gear.” Mulle read The Beacon on the Pène d’Aragon, which rises at a height of 2,918 meters and is exactly on the French-Spanish border. “We had a six-hour ascent in deep, fresh snow under beautiful clear skies,” he said. “After Axel took the photo of me, we enjoyed a perfect run down deep and untouched powder.”
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1.The KAUST community football team won the third annual International Organizations Football Championship held in Jeddah on May 1.