Dr. Esmat Zaidan is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor at the College of Public Policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation. She previously held positions at Qatar University, United Arab Emirates University, and the University of Waterloo in Canada, where she earned her master''s and PhD degrees. Her previous professional appointments include the World Bank, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), and the United Nations (UNDP). Dr. Zaidan''s research focuses on sustainable development strategies and policy planning, with an emphasis on human-centered sustainability policies and people-centric cities. She explores the dynamics between technological deployment and human interaction. This includes the policy pathway for energy-efficient buildings, sustainable, resilient, and people-centric urban areas, as well as further study on impacts of technological change in urban life including smart cities and net-zero carbon communities.
She particularly focuses on the ways innovations in data-driven modeling and machine learning are shaping sustainability policies, further positive social, economic, and environmental outcomes. She has published over 65 articles, predominantly in Q1 journals indexed by Scopus and ISI Web of Science, and has been recognized as one of the global 2% Most Cited Scientists in her field. Dr. Imad Antoine Ibrahim is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Law & Governance at Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability, Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social sciences, University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands. He is also a Senior Research Associate at gLAWcal - Global Law Initiative for Sustainable Development, Essex, United Kingdom. He has been working on global issues from a legal perspective for the last decade. He is currently involved in several projects in places such as South Africa, MENA region, Central Asia, and China. In the past, he was a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Gas Research and Utilization (CIGRU) & Institute of Water Security and Science (IWSS), West Virginia University, United States; a visiting researcher at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), Washington, DC, United States, a Junior Fellow in the Global Research Network Think Tank, United Kingdom and an Early Stage Researcher at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
He was also a resident research fellow at the Center for United Nations Constitutional Research - CUNCR, Brussels, Belgium and an Energy policy expert at the Lebanese Oil & Gas Initiative - LOGI, Beirut, Lebanon. He worked as an EU Commission Marie Curie Fellow at Tsinghua University School of Law, THCEREL--Center for Environmental, Natural Resources & Energy Law, at the CRAES--Chinese Research Academy on Environmental Sciences in Beijing (China) and at the Business School, Research Center for Climate Change and Trade and at Beijing Normal University. He also worked as a researcher in several European and Italian institutes and universities such as the University Institute of European Studies (IUSE) and Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale, Novara. He was a trainee lawyer at Al Jad Law Firm reviewing international conventions related to energy. He holds a Phd in Law from the Institute of Law, Politics and Development (DIRPOLIS), Sant''Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy; a Master in European Interdisciplinary Studies, from the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium, and a Bachelor in Law from the Lebanese University "Filiere Francophone de Droit", Beirut, Lebanon. Dr. Elie Azar is a Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa, ON, Canada. His primary research focuses on integrating research methods and knowledge from different disciplines to promote a sustainable, resilient, and people-centric built environment.
Examples of these disciplines include building energy modelling and design, occupant behavior and comfort modeling, machine learning, and urban energy planning. Dr. Azar has led or contributed to research projects exceeding $7.5 million in funding and supervised more than 30 graduate students. He has co-authored more than 150 scientific publications, including 4 books on artificial intelligence, sustainability, smart cities, and carbon neutrality. He is also frequently invited to contribute to intergovernmental publications, such as UNEP-CCC Climate Technology Progress Reports. Dr. Azar has received numerous distinctions and recognitions, such as best paper papers awards and a feature on the "World''s Top 2% Scientists" list prepared by Stanford University and Elsevier in 2022.
Before joining Carleton University, Dr. Azar was a faculty member at Khalifa University in the UAE. He earned his B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Polytechnique Montreal and his MSc. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.