MEET OUR TEAM

Achieving Excellence Together

Get to know the brilliant minds behind DESAL's groundbreaking work. Our diverse team of experts brings together a wealth of knowledge and experience, united by a common passion for solving the world's most pressing water challenges.

Principal Investigator

Noreddine Ghaffour

Professor

Research Interests: Membrane Fabrication, Water Desalination, Water Treatment, Filtration Processes

Research Scientists

Sofiane Soukane

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Translational Research, Innovative Desalination Technologies, Process Scale-up and Equipment Prototyping, Computational Physics, Multiscale Modeling and Simulation

Alla Alpatova

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Desalination, Membrane Processes, Brine Mining, Biofouling, Scaling, Membrane Cleaning, Disinfection Byproducts

Mohamed Obaid Awad

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Membrane Fabrication, Nanofibers, Electrospinning, Desalination, Wastewater Treatment, Oily Wastewater Treatment

Sarah Kerdi

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Water Desalination, Filtration Processes, Spacer Design, Fouling Characterization, Catalysis

Muhammad Saqib Nawaz

Research Scientist

Research Interests: Forward osmosis, Membrane distillation, Membrane bioreactor, Low cost desalination, Hybrid desalination systems, Industrial wastewater treatment.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Henry J. Tanudjaja

Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Membrane Filtration, Machine Learning, Membrane Fouling, Water Treatment

Yong Jin

​Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Surface Wetting, Heat and Mass Transfer, Materials, Desalination, Atmospheric Water Harvesting

Harun Elcik

Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Interests: Membrane fabrication, Fouling, Desalination

Ph.D. Students

Khalid Alhamdan

Ph.D. Student

Research Interests: Water desalination and re-use, Physical membrane separation processes, Membrane fabrication, Renewable Energy

Najat A. Amin

Ph.D. Student

Research Interests: Membrane Filtration, Membrane (bio)fouling, Machine Learning, Membrane Cleaning, Desalination, Water Treatment

Master's Student

Daniel Dylewski

Master Student

Research Interests: Water Desalination, Biofouling, Sustainable Development

Research Group Staff​​

Mohammed Al-Amri

Lab Technician

Research Interests: CAD Designing, Rapid Prototyping, Membrane Desalination, 3D Printing, Laser CAM