Dr. El-Atab

Nazek El-Atab is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Principal investigator of the Smart, Advanced Memory devices and Applications lab (SAMA) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. Her research interest focuses on the design and fabrication of smart memory and electronic devices and their applications.

Dr. Nazek El-Atab received her B.Sc. degree in Computer and Communications Engineering from the Hariri Canadian University, Lebanon, in 2012, her M.Sc. degree in Microsystems Engineering from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, UAE, in 2014, and her Ph.D. degree in Interdisciplinary Engineering from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in 2017, under a cooperative program with the MIT and funded by the US Office of Naval Research. During her Ph.D., she worked as a visiting researcher with Prof. Krishna Saraswat at Stanford University. Prior to joining KAUST as an Assistant Professor in ECE, she was a Research Scientist at KAUST.

Dr. El-Atab’s research interest focuses on the design and fabrication of smart memory and electronic devices and their applications, including in-memory computing and in-memory sensing.

Dr. El-Atab has received several awards for her research, including 2015 For Women in Science Middle East Fellowship by L’Oreal-UNESCO, the 2016 IEEE Nanotechnology Student Travel Award, the 2017 International Rising Talents Award by L’Oreal-UNESCO, the 2018 “Hariri Canadian University” Alumni Award, and was portrayed in the 2019 “Remarkable Women in Technology” by UNESCO. Dr. El-Atab was also selected to participate in the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany. Dr. El-Atab has also been selected among the 2020 UC Berkeley EECS Rising Stars and among the 10 Innovators under 35 by MIT Technology Review Arabia, 2020. Her research has been highlighted extensively in international media including in IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, BBC, MIT Technology Review, Sky News Arabia, MBC, etc.

Dr. El-Atab is a Senior IEEE Member and currently serves as the Chair of the Western Saudi Arabia IEEE Electron Device Society Chapter. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor at the Nano Select journal by Wiley and as a Review Editor at the Flexible Electronics journal by Frontiers in Electronics. She has published over 26 papers in international peer-reviewed scientific journals, 40 conference presentations, 2 book chapters, 2 books, and has 7 filed U.S. patents.

Nazek El-Atab, PhD

Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

PI – Smart, Advanced Memory devices and Applications Lab (https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/sama)

IEEE – Electron Devices Society Distinguished Lecturer

Associate Editor, Nano Select (Wiley), Microelectronic Engineering (Elsevier) and Flexible Electronics (Frontiers in Electronics)

Computer Electrical Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) Division

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) 

4700 KAUST, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

Biography:

Nazek El-Atab is currently a Research Scientist with Professor Muhammad Mustafa Hussain at the MMH labs at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. ... She is a Senior IEEE member and currently serves as the Secretary of the IEEE Western Saudi Arabia Branch.

Dr. Nazek El-Atab received her Ph.D. degree in Interdisciplinary Engineering (EECS) from the Masdar Institute - Massachusetts Institute of Technology cooperative program in 2017 and funded by the US office of Naval Research. During her PhD, she worked as a visiting researcher with Prof. Krishna Saraswat at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the development of futuristic electronics. She has received several awards for her research, including the 2015 For Women in Science Middle East Fellowship by L’Oreal-UNESCO, Best Paper Award in the Micro/Nano-systems section at the UAEGSRC 2016 conference, the 2016 IEEE Nanotechnology Student Travel Award in Japan, the 2017 International Rising Talents Award by L’Oreal-UNESCO, the 2018 “Hariri Canadian University” Alumni Award, and was portrayed among the 2019 “Remarkable Women in Technology” by UNESCO. Dr. El-Atab was also selected to attend the 70th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany, 2020. She has first-authored 25+ papers in international peer-reviewed scientific journals, 45+ international conference presentations, 2 book chapters, 2 books and has 7 filed U.S. patents. Based on the altmetric attention score, her research on flexible membranes for enhanced filtration efficiency is placed in the top 5% while her research on flexible solar cells is in the top 10% of all research outputs. She has served as a Jury member for several scientific awards and competitions co-hosted by UNESCO, including: Jury member of the 2017 For Women in Science Middle East Fellowship by L’Oreal-UNESCO, a member of the Panel of Experts for the 2019 For Women in Science Awards by L’Oreal-UNESCO and a Jury member of the 2019 Regional Girls Coding competition by UNESCO. She is currently the secretary of the IEEE Western Saudi Arabia section Chapter. Her research has been highlighted extensively in international media including America’s Navy, National Geographic, Skynews Arabia, BBC, Nature research, MIT Tech. Rev., Fast Company, IEEE Spectrum, the National, MBC, etc.