Professor Kamal Youcef-Toumi
Mechatronics Research Laboratory (MRL)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA

Professor Kamal Youcef-Toumi is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where he joined the faculty in 1986. He earned his M.S. in 1981 and Sc.D. in 1985 in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 1979.

Academic Roles and Leadership

He currently serves as Director of the Mechatronics Research Laboratory at MIT, a position he has held since 1986. He is also Director of the Ibn Khaldun Fellowship for Saudi Arabian Women (since 2011) and Co-Director of the Center for Complex Engineering Systems (since 2017). As of November 2024, he became Director of the Global MIT At-Risk Fellows Palestine programme.

Research Focus

His research and teaching interests focus on design, modelling, simulation, instrumentation, and automatic control systems. Applications include manufacturing, robotics, automation, metrology, and nano/biotechnology. He notably developed an atomic force microscope that enables scientists to watch nanoscale chemical processes in near-real time.

Professor Shaligram Pokharel

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering,College of Engineering, Qatar University, Qatar

Prof. Shaligram Pokharel is a Professor in the Industrial and Systems Engineering program at Qatar University, with over 20 years of international experience in systems engineering, engineering management, and energy planning, holding a PhD and master’s in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo. He has published over 100 papers and is recognized among the Top 2% World Researchers in a Stanford University report.

Academic roles and leadership
He serves as Professor at Qatar University and Director of the Global Accreditation Center at the Project Management Institute, while also acting as a Registered Reviewer for Qatar’s National Committee for Qualification and Academic Accreditation and a Visiting Professor at Kathmandu University, Nepal. His leadership portfolio includes foundational and senior volunteer roles in the PMI Singapore Chapter and global PMI bodies such as the Chapter Member Advisory Group and Academic Insight Team.

Research focus
His research centers on systems engineering and engineering management, particularly energy planning, humanitarian logistics, reverse logistics, and supply chain resilience. He develops models and decision-support tools that help design and manage robust, sustainable industrial and supply chain systems under uncertainty and disruption.