King Abdullah University of Science and Technology at Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

www.kaust.edu.sa

BEACONthe ة املنـار

September 2014 / Thul Qedah - Thul Hijjah 1435 Volume 5, Issue No. 1

HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHERS | Continued on p8

PLASTIC | Continued on p3USING SCIENCE TO FEED | Continued on p7

DIVERSITY | Continued on p5

الصبر من القليل هو جديدة أشياء الكتشاف تحتاجه ما كل أحيانا أبحاث آخر في فعاًل حدث ما وهذا متنوعة. برؤية أبحاث وفريق التي )copolymer( كوبوليمر جسيمات لكتلة البيولوجية المحاكاة الدكتور هم عبداهلل الملك جامعة من أساتذة مجموعة أجراها زمالء الى إضافة نونيس، سوزانا والدكتورة بينيمان فيكتور كالوس ما بعد الدكتوراه الدكتور هايشياو يو والدكتور زياويان كوي. ونشرت Nature Communication نتائج هذا البحث في ورقة بحثية في مجلة

في شهر مايو الماضي.

البحر أبحاث إريجوين مدير مركز زابير البروفيسور فريق عمل توصل األحمر، الى معرفة أن كمية المواد البالستيكية في المحيطات مرتفعة بحثية ورقة في أخيرًا البحث هذا نتائج نشر وتم متوقعه. غير بصورة األكاديمية في مجلة ”Plastic Debris in the Open Ocean " بعنوان

.)PNAS( الوطنية للعلوموفي ما يلي جانب من حوارنا مع البروفيسور زابير إريجوين.

دكتور اريجوين، هل يمكنك أن تتحدث لنا بإيجاز عن هذا البحث؟ أجرينا في هذه الورقة دراسة مفصلة عن مدى انتشار المواد البالستيكية االستكشافية. رحالتنا خالل المفتوحة العالم محيطات في الدقيقة حيث قمنا بعمل بعض االختبارات وجمع العينات من محيطات العالم المختلفة. وتمكنا من الخروج بنتيجتين رئيسيتين : األولى أن البالستيك منتشر في كل مكان ، والثانية أن معدل البالستيك الذي عثرنا عليه أقل

تتمه صفحة 3

تتمه صفحة 5

Sometimes what it takes to discover something new is a team with a diversified

vision and a lot of patience. At least, this was the case with the latest biomimetic

block copolymer particle research conducted by KAUST professors Dr. Klaus-

Viktor Peinemann and Dr. Suzana Nunes, along with postdoctoral fellows Dr.

Haizhou Yu and Dr. Xiaoyan Qiu.

“For me, the most interesting thing with this experiment, is that when most

people reach a point in the results when they think this is not what is expected,

they will stop. But Haizhou Yu and Xiaoyan Qiu didn’t stop. They are the type

“The world’s population stands at 6.5 billion people right

now. By the year 2050, we will be 9.5 billion. So we will

have a gap of about 3 billion people to feed in the next 35

years,” said Heribert Hirt, Associate Director of KAUST’s

Center for Desert Agriculture. An upcoming international

conference at KAUST, titled Desert Rhizosphere Microbes for

Future Sustainable Agriculture, to be held on November 3-5,

2015, will focus on examining ways to help plants and crops

survive and thrive in extreme environmental conditions.

“We try and understand how these plants can actually

live under these extreme conditions and determine how

we can use this knowledge from these plants,” Hirt said.

“We are looking into the microbes that are living with these

plants and help them to establish themselves under these

conditions of heat, drought and salt which are the three key

factors in agriculture.”

As we face the growing reality of global warming, this

knowledge is of primal importance. We will have more heat

and resulting droughts. So our agricultural system will need

Four KAUST faculty members were recently

acknowledged in “Thomson Reuters Highly

Cited Researchers 2014.” Congratulations to

KAUST researchers Dr. Jean M.J. Frechet, Dr.

“These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the

tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets

the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly

remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.”

Perhaps the following interview with Dr. Xabier Irigoien,

Director of the Red Sea Center, isn’t quite as dramatic as Herman

Melville’s “Moby Dick,” but it is true that the world’s oceans

are not as beautiful, nor as clean as they once were. Irigoien’s

findings were recently published in a paper titled, “Plastic Debris

in the Open Ocean,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy

of Science (PNAS).

We recently sat down with Dr. Irigoien for a face-to-face

interview. Candid and insightful, he detailed the findings of

USING SCIENCE TO FEED THREE BILLION PEOPLE

HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHERS

MORE PLASTIC THAN EXPECTED IN THE OCEAN

اكتشف الباحثون ارتفاع كمية املواد البالستيكية يف املحيطات أكثر مما كان متوقعا

INSIDE: Research 6-7 Community 8News 1-5

التنوع يساعد فريق االحباث على اكتشاف جسيمات جديدة

DIVERSITY HELPS TEAM DISCOVER NEW PARTICLES

“I really think that for science to be an inspiration,

for science to be exciting, you have to address a

big question,” said Prof. Pierre Magistretti, Dean

of KAUST’s Biological and Environmental Science

and Engineering Division and Bioscience Professor,

during a recent orientation speech to new students.

The guiding principles Magistretti focused on

in his talk were: curiosity, passion, establishing

a short and long-term vision, and balancing

the requirements of being both self-critical and

self-confident.

As he reminded the incoming master's and Ph.D.

candidates that they are in “one of the best places

in the world,” Magistretti said it’s really up to them

to follow their curiosity and identify important

questions—with the help of their mentors. Stressing

the importance of applying themselves to learning

proven and accepted scientific knowledge, he

cautioned students, especially the ones doing

original research, to not be afraid of questioning

prevailing paradigms.

“If you want to advance science you have to

tackle, as I said, a big question for which there

is not yet an answer. And that’s everything there

is about science,” he said. Highlighting the fact

that their academic mentors have in most cases

10 to 30 years experience in their field, and thus

may be inclined to be less critical of received

hypotheses, he pointed out that “graduate

students have some kind of ignorance about the

field. This ignorance can be sometimes helpful

because it provides an unbiased, fresh eye

toward a question.”

Expressing his confidence that the students

must possess that curiosity fiber to have been

accepted at KAUST, Magistretti said that those

traits of curiosity and passion represent the

bedrock of a scientific career.

“When you do experiments, when you do

research, don’t let your creativity be constrained

by your knowledge,” Magistretti cautioned.

“As a scientist you have to like uncertainty. You

have to like to be in unchartered territory and you

must not be unsettled by the unknown. Actually,

you have to be driven by the unknown. And that’s

a matter of passion. So this is really an engine

to move ahead in your quest for knowledge and

discovery. You need passion,” he said.

ESTABLISHING LONG AND SHORT-TERM GOALS

Defining what “the big question” is, however,

is only the first step. Equally important is

devising a sustainable strategy to stay on track.

Short-term goals have to be very rigorous, very

concrete, very down-to-earth and integrated in a

long-term vision. But at the same time students

“should think long-term and a vision about the

big question that they want to answer. It’s a

juggling act every day,” Magistretti explained.

While having their research published in a

great journal is an ambition of any graduate

student as they embark on their academic career,

it should not be their only goal. The BESE Dean

said, “your goal should be to find something

important, to ask an important question and to

find something significant—especially if you’re in

a place like KAUST. And at the same time, as you

go to the lab everyday to conduct experiments

and try something, you must be conscious of the

fact that most of the time it won’t work. You must

keep on persisting.”

Having the passion and the vision to address

big questions will help overcome the frustrations

of the short-term goals that sometimes

inevitably occur.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-CONFIDENCE“In addition to being curious, driven and

passionate, you have to be very self-confident

when you do science,” Magistretti told

the incoming students. “You really have to

believe in yourself. This is important. Okay,

the experiment didn’t work, you’ll try another

one and modify this but you go ahead. And at

the same time you have to be extremely, and

I really underscore, extremely self-critical. At

every moment of your journey in science you

have to question what you have found. Is this

really true? Is this an artifact maybe? Or is

this something that is only marginal and you

kind of blow it up thinking that it’s a big and

important observation. So here again you need

to have a balance.”

The path to a Ph.D. isn’t always easy. A

student may have an idea which he or she thinks

is the greatest concept since Leonardo DaVinci.

But, on occasion, the mentor will advise against

it when they think it will not work. “I would say

that 90 percent of the time the mentor would be

right,” said Magistretti.

“So again it’s a matter of balance,” he adds.

“You have to trust the knowledge that your

mentor has acquired over the years and let

him or her orient you towards an important

question and you can bring an important

contribution to a bigger picture that the

mentor has developed over time. But I think,

particularly as you progress in your Ph.D., as

you read more and acquire more knowledge,

you gain a fresh eye also.”

Conducting original research always

entails a measure of self-confidence when

questioning existing knowledge. This

comes hand-in-hand with being extremely

self-critical. To illustrate this point, Prof.

Magistretti referred to a quote by pioneering

scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, who said he “made

discoveries because he was standing on the

shoulders of giants.”

“We have to acknowledge the truth and

validity of existing knowledge but at the same

time we have to be ready to question it.”

KAUST PROFESSOR ELECTED MEMBER OF AGYAKAUST’s Osman Bakr, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and

Engineering, was elected one of the first 50 members of the Arab-German

Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) this June.

The first 50 AGYA members were selected after two calls for membership

in 2013 and 2014. From these calls, the organization chose 25 Arab and

25 German outstanding researchers to represent their community. The

selected members came from universities and research institutions across

the Middle East including Egypt, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia as well

as Germany.

To celebrate the announcement, Bakr and his fellow members gathered for the opening

conference in Germany at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities

(BBAW) in Berlin to discuss topics around education, energy, water and environment, cultural

heritage, innovation and transformation processes. They also attended AGYA’s opening

ceremony on June 21.

AGYA began in 2013 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in

Germany and the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain as the first bilateral young academy in the

world. Its goal is to promote cooperation between Arab and German researchers who are in the

first ten years of their career following their Ph.D.

AGYA also support interdisciplinary projects across various fields of research, scientific policy

and education, and see their members as ambassadors of science and culture.

DR. BLANCA AYUSO DE DIOS NAMED VISITING SCHOLAR Dr. Blanca Ayuso de Dios, KAUST Visiting Researcher of Stochastic Numerics

Research Group, has been named the 2013 Romberg Visiting Scholar by the

Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for

the Sciences. The official notification was made in February, 2014.

After receiving her Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences from Universidad

Autonoma de Madrid (Spain) in October 2003, de Dios took a postdoctoral

position at the Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche in

Pavia, Italy. In 2007, she returned to Madrid as an Assistant Professor. Several

years later, her work led her to the Centre de Recerca Matematica in Barcelona,

as a Ramon y Cajal Researcher. On January 2014, she joined KAUST and the Stochastic Numerics Research

Group as Visiting Researcher.

Her research is mainly concerned with the development and analysis of numerical methods (mainly of

finite element type) for partial differential equations. She is also active in the analysis and development

of fast solvers for the algebraic systems that arise from numerical discretization, in particular domain

decomposition and multilevel methods. Her more recent interests include uncertainty quantification,

and the applications of her work are most directly related to continuum mechanics and plasma physics.

The Romberg Visiting Scholarship is for up to six months, while spanning an eligible period of three

years. During visits, de Dios will contribute to the training and research program of HGS MathComp.

In doing so, she will work closely with Prof. Guido Kanschat and other members of the IWR, the

Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing of Heidelberg University.

News2 September 2014 The Beacon

A great university is defined by its people. As we enter our fifth academic year, I would like to thank you

for your collective dedication to building a world-class research university and a vibrant community.

Like you, each year, I enjoy welcoming our new students to campus—they come with fresh ideas, new

perspectives and the drive to succeed. This fall we welcome 284 new students to KAUST, as well as

11 new faculty, 30 new post docs and 64 staff members. Since last summer, 27 faculty, 175 post docs

and over 300 staff members have agreed to join our ranks. They and their families join you to bring

forth the best ideas from all over the world. Our international DNA makes us truly unique, with over

100 nationalities confidently working together to advance innovative research and education that will

benefit humanity.

Collectively, we share the same passion for curiosity, adventure and creativity—simply put, we love

challenges. This is why we attract some of the world’s best scientists, engineers, scholars, administrators,

professionals and staff who arrive at KAUST ready to embrace the opportunity before us. Together,

we are exploring the world’s most difficult problems in an environment that motivates us to think

big. My good friend Dean Pierre Magistretti recently told our new students “as a scientist you have to

like uncertainty. You have to like to be in unchartered territory and you must not be unsettled by the

unknown. Actually, you have to be driven by the unknown.”

I believe this applies to all of us, in every corner of KAUST. After five years we are still navigating

unchartered territory, but to our advantage we have the brightest minds in the world and our shared

passion for a good challenge. King Abdullah gave us this opportunity by intentionally creating a

university “where faculty, students and staff would have the freedom to aim high and explore risky

ideas without constraints.”

Welcome to the new academic year and let’s continue our journey as a Great University!

The Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 1, September 2014. Published by The Communications Department, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia. Contact Salah Sindi salah.sindi@kaust.edu.sa, or Nicholas Demille nicholas.demille@kaust.edu.sa © King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Printed on partially recycled paper.

Jean-Lou Chameau

THE BIG QUESTION: ADVICE FOR NEW STUDENTS

the expedition’s research, spoke of what

worries him and talked about what’s next

in the global battle to clean up our oceans.

Dr. Irigoien, could you please give a brief

synopsis of this latest research?

This is a paper where we studied the

distribution of microplastics in the open

ocean around the planet. This was done

with an expedition crew that went around

the planet collecting samples. There are two

main messages and findings that we got.

The first is that there is plastic everywhere.

There are microplastics as far away from dry

land as one can travel. The second finding is

that much less plastic was found than what

should be there. We know the amount of

plastics that are produced, and the number

of plastics that are entering the ocean. This

means the plastics are either sinking or

going into the food chain of ocean species.

So that’s the crux of it? You have a pretty

good bead on the quantity of plastics that

are leaving dry land and going out into the

oceans. You’re expecting to find a certain

quantity, but that quantity is not there.

Then, it’s a question of where it has gone,

and is it then harmful in some fashion?

Yes. The exact estimation of how much

plastic is going out into the oceans is not

absolutely precise, but we are finding 100

times less plastic than expected. So even if

the outgoing plastic estimation is slightly

off, the discrepancy between what plastic

is being found is a lot less…a lot less. So,

the plastic is entering the ocean, and then

breaking down into microplastics – but then

much of it is disappearing.

Another interesting observation is that

for the larger-sized plastic materials, we are

finding the expected amounts. But for the

smaller-sized plastics, the microplastics- they

are disappearing. There is a range of smaller

sizes that are disappearing. In 88 percent of

the water samples we pulled from the world’s

oceans, we found plastics.

That is a significant percentage. To clarify,

when you’re referring to plastics, you are

talking about trash? Trash that is dumped

by humans – via barges and so forth -that

then travels into the open ocean?

Yes, it’s coming out from the rivers, from

the coast, wherever.

OK. So let’s just take a plastic milk container,

for example. When you’re referring

to microplastics, you’re talking about

something that, when traveling out into the

open ocean, it is being deteriorated by salt

water, so it ends up in tiny pieces?

Yes, what happens is the weathering

effect. You have the sun, the salt, the water

– so the plastic starts breaking down. Any

large piece will break into smaller pieces.

Those smaller pieces break down to even

small sizes, and so on - eventually to sizes

less than one millimeter. We found that

in the centimeter sized ranges, there is

an amount of plastics that we expected.

When we looked for sizes in the one to

two millimeter range, we found that they

are, and have been, disappearing. And our

main hypothesis is that they are being

eaten by fish.

Are there studies that have caught fish

and checked their digestive systems to

see if plastics are present?

There are studies looking at fish in the

open ocean, and they have found that

they do eat the plastics. There are a limited

number of these studies, but they do find that

the fish do have plastics in their stomachs.

Is there a risk of these microplastics

getting back into human water supplies?

No. Although the microplastics are very

tiny, they are still much larger than anything

that could pass through water treatment

facilities. But, the real concern would be the

plastics that enter the food chain, when fish

eat them.

Was there anything that surprised you

in these findings?

The fact that there are plastics everywhere.

Perhaps that was naïve on our part. You’re

used to going to the open ocean and seeing

clean, clear water everywhere so you don’t

expect to find as much as we did. The other

surprise is that so much plastic is missing, is

unaccounted for. The question then is where

has it gone?

What’s the next step in the research?

The next step is to find out where the

microplastics are going, with certainty. Our

main hypotheses are that they are being eaten

or that they sink.

What’s the most important message for

the average person on the street?

Plastics have been around for a long

time, and they are a large part of our

daily lives. Eliminating plastics from our

lives is not practical. But the issue of the

management of the plastic trash, any trash,

is something that needs to be addressed.

3September 2014www.kaust.edu.sa

LAST MONTH, as part of its Distinguished Speakers lecture series,

the Saudi Research Science Institute (SRSI) hosted world-renowned

MIT Professor Woodie Flowers—one of the most recognizable faces

in modern robotics.

Flowers is perhaps best known by young international students

who compete in the FIRST LEGO League—a robotics program

designed to engage secondary and high school students in science

and technology—for coining the phrase “gracious professionalism,”

which encourages nondestructive competition,

knowledge-sharing and mutual respect among

peers for the betterment of all.

At lunch and dinner prior to the lecture,

young SRSI scholars flocked to Flowers to

discuss the future of modern technologies and

share their experiences participating in the

LEGO League. Students also tried their best

to find out in advance from Flowers all they

could about topics in his upcoming lecture,

which they eagerly awaited.

The reason for Flowers’ broad international

appeal to young people was immediately

apparent in his lecture. A captivating and

creative speaker, he began by telling the

students about his first steps into technology as a teenager from

a poor family in Louisiana, USA. Now one of MIT’s most beloved

researchers, he said his goal is to create a passion for technology

in his students.

Indeed, Flowers’ course, Introduction to Design and Manufacturing,

is one of the most popular and influential engineering courses at

MIT. In it, students are given kits containing parts, and must compete

throughout the semester to design robotic devices. Flowers described

the evolution of the course, from something simple and low-profile,

to a campus-wide event, and finally to an internationally-recognized

course. He noted that the course is intended to inspire students to

tackle increasingly challenging problems each year.

Flowers then described the FIRST LEGO League robotics

competitions, which he helped to create, and his work to engage

younger audiences in the rewards and challenges of robotics. Now

spanning nearly 60 countries, these efforts have enjoyed increasing

success, and an award in his name celebrates advances in effective

communication in engineering and design.

The lecture concluded with a long Q & A session, in

which SRSI participants had the opportunity to continue the

discussion with Flowers.

“It was both exciting and gratifying to see the students’

overwhelming response to Prof. Flowers’ talk,” said Debra Carlson

Wood, Manager of Young Talent Development for Saudi Initiatives.

“Clearly, his topic and his approach resonated deeply.”

The SRSI program hosts 45 top high school students from

throughout the Kingdom for six weeks of intensive research

under world-class KAUST faculty mentors. Now in its fourth

year, SRSI inspires the next generation of young Saudi leaders

in science and research. SRSI is administered by KAUST’s Saudi

Initiatives organization.

SAUDI RESEARCH SCIENCE INSTITUTE HOSTS WORLD-RENOWNED MIT PROF. WOODIE FLOWERS

News

PLASTIC | Continued from p1 تتمة الصفحة األولى:بكثير من ما يفترض أن يكون. ألننا نعرف مقدار المواد البالستيكية التي يتم إنتاجها، ونسبة المواد البالستيكية التي تصل للمحيطات. وهذا يعني أن هذه المواد البالستيكية إما أنها وصلت إلى قاع المحيط أو دخلت

ضمن السلسلة الغذائية لكائنات المحيطات.

أين اختفى البالستيك وهل هو ضار للبيئة؟ تقديرنا عن كمية البالستيك التي تصل إلى المحيطات ليس دقيقًا كفاية، ولكننا الحظنا أن كمية البالستيك التي وجدنها هي أقل بمائة مرة عن ما كان متوقعا. حيث أننا نعلم أن كثير من البالستيك يصل الى المحيط ثم يتحلل الى مواد بالستيكية دقيقة – ولكن جزء كبير منها يختفي

بصورة محيرة.وثمة مالحظة أخرى مثيرة لالهتمام وهي أن كمية المواد البالستيكية التي الدراسات بحسب متوقع كان لما تمامًا مماثلة الحجم الكبيرة للمواد بالنسبة تماما الموضوع مختلف ولكن المجال في هذا أجريت البالستكية الصغيرة الحجم و الدقيقة والتي لوحظ أنها تختفي بنسب متفاوتة. وخالل هذه الدراسة عثرنا على مواد بالستيكية في %88 من

عينات المياه التي جمعناها من مختلف محيطات العالم.

هل هناك خطر في أن تصل هذه المواد البالستيكية الدقيقة الى مخزوننا من مياه الشرب؟

هذه المواد البالستيكية دقيقة جدًا ولكنها أكبر من أن تتجاوز عملية المواد أن تدخل هذه الحقيقي هو الخطر المياه. لكن معالجة وتحلية

ضمن السلسلة الغذائية في حال تناولتها االسماك.

ما هو أكثر ما فاجأك في هذه النتائج؟حقيقة وجود البالستيك في كل مكان. حيث أننا اعتدنا على الذهاب إلى المحيطات المفتوحة ورؤية المياه نظيفة ونقية في كل مكان، ولم يخطر ببالنا العثور على هذه الكمية الكبيرة من البالستيك. والمفاجأة البالستكية تختفي، وال يمكننا المواد الكثير من هذه أن األخرى هي

معرفة أين اختفت؟

ما هي الخطوة التالية في هذا البحث؟الدقيقة البالستيكية المواد هذه مسار معرفة هي التالية الخطوة تنتهي كطعام إما أنها لدينا هي الرئيسية والفرضيات المحيطات. في

.لألسماك أو انها وصلت إلى قاع المحيطات

The BeaconResearch4 September 2014

MATH is in everything including football, but it takes a mathematician

like Dr. Peter Markowich to explain how football equates to life.

“I really love football. I actually grew up with football. My father

took me to the pitch when I was a young boy and even my mother

came along. It was a family thing, and since that time I’ve gone to

see matches,” said Dr. Peter Markowich, Distinguished Professor of

Applied Mathematics at KAUST.

But while the game is fun to watch, there are various aspects of

football where mathematics are involved. The first example is one that

Markowich says is a more philosophical concept.

FOOTBALL AND THE MEANING OF LIFE “If you think of football as a whole—any football match that is 90

minutes—it is really a great example of a very complicated random

process. I would say it’s a random process with a drift,” he said.

The randomness Markowich is talking about comes from everyone

involved in the game. It includes the physical shape of the players, how

the leading players slept during the night, how the referee sees things

and the quality of the pitch. Even the weather plays a role. “Maybe it

rains; maybe it doesn’t. It depends on very minor things—so in some

sense this is a simplified version of life. I mean, life is a random

process with a drift and football is likewise,” Markowich explained.

The drift is there because the better team should win, but this

doesn’t always happen and the “not always” is when the randomness

becomes too strong and takes over the drift. “In a football match, you

have 11 players on each side – the more players the more complexity

you have to the game. You have external factors and internal factors

and it’s all random, but in many cases the drift beats the randomness,”

Markowich said.

Take a look at the world champions in the last 30 years. It wasn’t

always the favorites that won, but it was always good teams and that

is what Markowich says is the drift. There may be some consistency

overall, but in a single match anything is possible.

“I think that’s what makes football so exciting. It is just not

predetermined. You never know when you get in the game what will

happen. If you compare it with tennis, which is a game that I like

very much, there are only two players so it’s much less complex,” said

Markowich." There is still some randomness, but most often in tennis

the favorite wins. With 11 players many more things can happen.”

AND THEN THERE’S THE CROWDSCrowds are another mathematical issue. Take for example, the

motion created when spectators do the Ola-wave through the

stadium. There is an interesting mathematical model that goes

along with it which was developed by Gueant, Lasry and Lions

in their “Mean Field Games and Applications” framework. The

idea begins with a large number of players—in this case 80,000

spectators and a few control aspects. “The model is based on the

idea that you want to behave similar to your neighbors. So if

they get up, you also tend to get up. On the other hand, when

you sit, you are comfortable and when you stand you are also

comfortable. You don’t want to be in the middle position with

bent knees and uncomfortable, but at the same time you want to

be coordinated with what your neighbor does,” said Markowich.

The Mean Field Game developers have written down a

mathematical equation for the Ola-wave and have tested it and

it does the job. Markowich says the reason it works is because

these models are based on an averaging principle. In other words,

you have a large number of people. What each one does is not

really relevant, but what is relevant is the emerging, averaged

pattern. “The averaging process is based on complicated individual

behavioral patterns. It may not be a world-changing thing to

describe the Ola wave in a soccer stadium, but it is interesting that

using mathematics you can describe such a social phenomenon,”

said Markowich.

While the wave equation is interesting, crowd motion is a

practical and serious mathematical problem. Crowd motion in a

stadium is an unusual case as it is three dimensional. A stadium has

different entrances and levels and of course, an important question

is how do you evacuate a stadium in a fast and organized manner?

“We have examples in football stadiums where people were killed

like in the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. It was a catastrophic

event in the crowd started by the follow the leader behavior that led

to the deaths of 39 people and 600 more injured,” said Markowich.

“Managing an evacuation is a complicated mathematical process.“

Using simulations, mathematicians try to come up with ways to

organize the behavior of people. One idea is to put a column in the

middle of exits. “You might think this is going to be detrimental as

it decreases the area of the exit, but in many cases it leads to the

organization of the crowd,” said Markowich.

He says when watching simulations, you can see that crowds

exit faster when there is an obstacle in the middle or a double

door. In these cases, an obstacle has a positive effect in organizing

the crowd motion.

ADDING PANIC TO THE EQUATIONPanic in crowd modeling is an important factor, as when setting

up the model equations, you have to discard other strategies and

predefined patterns. Markowich says you may begin with a model

based on averages, but in a crisis, patterns change catastrophically

and these can be described by so-called mathematical panic models.

“It’s not based on physics and the principles that are written in

stone, but based on our behavioral instincts which are much more

complicated,” he explained. “In the end we still write equations

which are physics-based, although the constitutive equations come

from non-physical considerations like how do humans behave.”

Which brings us back to football and why the game is so exciting

to watch. “We are enticed by the game because it’s a small model

of life. It is full of random processes just like life,” Markowich said.

It’s a random process with a drift.

In May 2014, President Jean-Lou Chameau,

Vice President James Calvin, Dean Brian Moran

and several professors led a KAUST delegation

to China. A highlight of the trip was a special

gathering, hosted by President Chameau, in

Beijing of Alumni (graduates and former post-

docs), as well as students from China who will be

joining KAUST in August.

This was the first formal gathering and

celebration of KAUST Alumni outside of the

Kingdom. It was especially exciting for President

Chameau and the faculty to meet with the

enthusiastic Alumni in China and to learn of

their significant accomplishments in the few

short years since graduation. Some of the Alumni

have become entrepreneurs and formed their

own companies, while others have joined the

professorial ranks at universities.

It was also exciting for new students to meet

KAUST Alumni from China and see how proud

the Alumni are of KAUST and the opportunities

KAUST has provided them. In recognition of

the strong and enthusiastic cohort of Alumni in

China, KAUST will be forming a working group

on the establishment of an Alumni chapter in

China in the very near future.

WHY FOOTBALL IS A RANDOM PROCESS WITH A DRIFT

KAUST ALUMNI CELEBRATION IN BEIJING HOSTED BY PRESIDENT JEAN-LOU CHAMEAU

والتقنية للعلوم عبداهلل الملك جامعة من وفد قام وعضوية الجامعة رئيس شامو جان-لو الدكتور برئاسة كل من نائب الرئيس للشؤون األكاديمية جيمس كالفين، وعميد شؤون الطالب براين موران وعدد من أعضاء هيئة

التدريس بزيارة للصين خالل شهر مايو الماضي. وتهدف هذه الزيارة إلى اإللتقاء بخريجي الجامعة الذين حصلوا على درجتي الماجستير والدكتوراه التي تمنحها ما بباحثي اإللتقاء وكذلك عبداهلل، الملك جامعة بعد الدكتوراه السابقين، باإلضافة إلى اإللتقاء بالطلبة الملك جامعة الى سينضمون الذين الجدد الصينيون

عبداهلل في شهر أغسطس الحالي.جامعة بخريجي رسميًا األول هو اللقاء هذا ويعتبر الملك عبداهلل خارج المملكة حيث إلتقى الرئيس شامو

وأعضاء الوفد بالطلبة والخريجين في الصين وتعرفوا على أعمالهم وإنجازاتها الملموسة والتي إستطاعوا تحقيقها في سنوات وجيزة بعد التخرج. كما تم خالل هذه الزيارة روادًا لألعمال الذين أصبحوا الخريجين اإللتقاء ببعض ويمتلكون شركاتهم الخاصة، بينما البعض اآلخر فضل

االنضمام إلى صفوف األساتذة في الجامعات.وكانت هذه المناسبة فرصة رائعة لطالب الجامعة الجدد كي يلتقوا بالخريجين حيث عبروا عن فخرهم بانتمائهم إلى جامعة الملك عبداهلل التي وفرت لهم هذه الفرص الكبيرة. وتشجيعًا لروح الحماس لدى خريجي الجامعة تشكيل عبداهلل الملك جامعة قررت فقد الصين، في الجامعة في مجموعة عمل إلنشاء فرع محلي لخريجي

.الصين في المستقبل القريب

الرئيس جان-لو شامو يلتقي خرجيي جامعة امللك عبداهلل يف بكني

5Newswww.kaust.edu.sa September 2014

New Ventures & Entrepreneurship hosted the 2014 Spring Seed Fund

Gala on June 4 to recognize and honor this spring’s winning Seed

Fund teams.

The KAUST Seed Fund functions as a product development funding

mechanism that helps budding entrepreneurs move their ideas

through the commercialization process and ultimately form them

into new businesses. The University aims to provide the Kingdom

with innovative startup companies leading to new jobs, and present a

successful startup model that may be used Kingdom-wide.

As Amin Al-Shibani, KAUST Vice President for Economic

Development, noted during the event: “The Seed Fund program

is geared at empowering interested faculty, research scientists,

postdoctoral fellows and students, and providing them with the space

needed as well as the seed capital to turn their ideas into successful

businesses. We recognize they are working in deep science with real

business potential.”

The Seed Fund hosts two rounds of applications for funding during

the year, one in the spring and one in the fall. This spring’s three

winning teams were drawn from a pool of 37 applications, and were

selected by a panel of judges from academia to industry. A final

selection was made by the Seed Fund Oversight Committee.

The winning teams’ project titles and members were: “I3-Waste CO2

to Commercial Products” (Dr. Jeremie Pelletier, Laboratory Manager

at Catalysis Research Center; Dr. Valerio D’Elia, Research Scientist

at Catalysis Research Center; Mr. Blake Ashwell, Center Manager

at Catalysis Research Center); “ONCOGENOMICS - Highly Accurate

Test for Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer” (Prof. Vladimir Bajic,

Director of the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC); Dr

Roberto Incitti, Bioinformatician at the CBRC; Dr. Hicham Mansour,

Research Scientist in Biosciences Core Lab; Dr. Claude Hennion,

external member; Dr. Jean-Pierre Roperch, external member); and

“ZAD - Microbes to improve agriculture under drought, heat and

salinity” (Prof. Heribert Hirt, Biological Sciences and Engineering

Division (BESE); Prof. Daniele Daffonchio, BESE; Dr. Axel de Zelicourt,

postdoctoral fellow, Center for Desert Agriculture (CDA); Dr. Feras

F. Lafi, Research Scientist, CDA; Dr. Ramona Marasco, postdoctoral

fellow, Red Sea Research Center).

“It is just the beginning of the teams’ journeys,” Al-Shibani noted.

“The teams will face incredible pressure, the need to make difficult

decisions, and take risks – and all of this in addition to honoring their

dedication to their current professional and scientific engagements.”

The event featured Keynote Speaker Professor Erhan Erkut,

Founding President of Ozyegin University in

Istanbul, Turkey. Prof. Erkut discussed the

mission of the world’s new “global universities,”

which are “third-generation” universities that

must focus on commercializing technology

produced through their education and research.

“Universities are breeding grounds for

entrepreneurs,” Erkut said, “and universities today

must make a point of producing and encouraging

entrepreneurs. Through this, economic value, new

companies, and employment opportunities will

be created.” All these, he noted, are essential in

the global economy today, as the world has an

increasing need for more and better jobs for an

ever-growing workforce.

Erkut also stated that he believes KAUST has

many of the characteristics of a third-generation

university, and has the potential of becoming a

fully-fledged third-generation institution. This, he

said, will be essential to fostering economic growth and creating new

employment opportunities in Saudi Arabia, which is as essential for

the Kingdom today as it is for his home country of Turkey. “There is

the important need,” he stated, “to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem

in our respective countries.”

The event concluded with the Seed Fund winning teams presenting

their innovative business ideas through a series of short videos and

presentations. The teams then had a chance to network with event

visitors from academia and industry.

The Seed Fund is led by Nicola Bettio, who has recently joined

KAUST and who has been managing a venture capital fund in Europe

for the last 13 years. Saifuddin Tajuddin Mohamed, another new hire

with long experience in entrepreneurial ventures in North America,

is managing the Fund portfolio. Other members of the team include

Osman Sayeed, Award Financial Administrator; Amal Dokhan, Project

Coordinator; and Ozden Yurtseven, Pre-Award Specialist.

The Seed Fund team is always ready to meet people with novel

business ideas to discuss their projects and investigate how to

commercialize them. For further information and to schedule a

one-on-one meeting, contact the Seed Fund team at seed.fund@

kaust.edu.sa.

SEED FUND SPRING GALA 2014 UNVEILS THREE WINNING STARTUP PROJECTS

Seed Fund spring 2014 winners pose with members of the Seed Fund team during the Spring Gala 2014.

of people who will take the results and be curious

enough to go forward and find the real beauty of

it,” said Nunes, Professor of Environmental Science

and Engineering.

Using their combined experience with block

copolymers and self-assembly, the team utilized

what they knew to learn something they didn’t.

When the initial results were not as planned, they

continued to explore to see what happened. Taking

the chance on waiting was worth it. “They found

a nice biomaterial application. Then investigated

why this structure is that way and not in the way

we expected it to produce,” Nunes said.

Their results were published in Nature

Communicat ion in May (DOI 10.1038/

ncomms5110). The paper explains how they found

a simple way to fabricate microspheres through

block copolymer self-assembly. The particles they

found are able to act as pH-responsive gates and

have a highly porous infrastructure, which allows

them to have ultrahigh protein sorption capacity.

It was the first time this simple strategy to fabricate

micrometer-sized spheres with complexed porous

order and gated nanopores by BCP self-assembly

had been reported.

A WINNING DIVERSIFIED TEAMFor over a year, the team had been working on this

block copolymer research with an interest in self-

assembly. “We always want to develop structures

which can do new types of polymer separations –

separations that are difficult to do. This is our main

goal,” explained Peinemann, Professor of Chemical

and Biological Engineering.

With this particular project, they took a powder

from a polymer and stirred in it different organic

solvents. As they stirred it, the structures formed

and changed over time. “In the end, we made quite

interesting particles. We are trying to learn from

nature and are using the principle of self-assembly

like nature does,” Peinemann said.

The particles the team found contained attributes

that could be useful in biotechnology, medicine and

catalysis applications. They were able to separate

specific proteins by electrostatic interaction or by

size. The particles were also able to absorb these

proteins. “Another potential application for the

particle is the control and release of certain proteins.

For example, they may perhaps be loaded with a

drug and injected into the body that then slowly

release the drug,” Peinemann said.

But this discovery might have not occurred

without the dynamics of the team involved. They

say without their mix of expertise, they may not

have immediately seen the potential in the initial

structures. Nor would they have realized how time

would have changed the shape of the particles.

As members of KAUST’s Advanced Membranes

& Porous Materials Center and Water Desalination

and Reuse Center, Peinemann has decades of

experience creating large-scale membranes,

while Yu is experienced in block copolymers and

Nunes’ specialty is in membranes and polymer

thermodynamics. But it was Xiaoyan Qiu’s

expertise in proteins and biology that gave them

the breakthrough they needed.

“When I looked at the structure, I looked at it as a

chemist. But because her background is in biology,

Xiaoyan saw things differently. When she looked at

it, she said it looked like biomaterials,” said Yu.

Qiu’s knowledge gave the chemistry and

membrane team insight from a new perspective. She

noted when looking at the pore size, that it might

be suitable to separate something like proteins. And

because the pores were so regular, they were not only

able to separate proteins, but ones with almost equal

molecule weight.

LOOKING TO NATURE FOR FUTURE MEMBRANE SOLUTIONS

Currently, many groups are looking at natural

structures and trying to mimic what they can do.

Nunes says their case is unique as the structure is

completely porous. It can absorb the protein similar

to how it would work in nature. “It’s the way many

of our own organs work. We, ourselves, are in a way

a self-assembly. This is amazing to get this structure

just by mixing without a planned specific design

or probing. You have an order that is happening

spontaneously,” she said.

The team said they are trying to learn from these

biological channels as they are much more effective

than artificial channels. This research was one of

their ways to approach it, but other groups around

the world are trying different things.

“We—and I mean the scientific groups around

world—are in a state of development where we can

afford to explore much more complex mechanisms of

transport,” said Nunes. “I think with all the knowledge

we now have on membranes, it’s time to go a step

forward and mimic some of the special biological

channels that allow for complex separation.”

تقول الدكتورة سوزانا نونيس، أستاذة العلوم هذه في شدني ما "أكثر : البيئية والهندسة التجربة، هو حقيقة أن معظم الباحثين عندما ثم أبحاثهم في متقدمة مرحلة إلى يصلون هو ما عن تماما مغايرة النتائج أن يكتشفون يتوقفون الحاالت معظم في فإنهم متوقع يكن لم األمر .ولكن والمحاولة. البحث عن والدكتور يو للدكتور هايشياو بالنسبة كذلك المجتهدين العلماء من فهم كوي. زياويان مواصلة عن النتائج غرابة تثنيهم ال الذين يكفي جمياًل علميًا فضواًل ويمتلكان البحث لدفع نتائج البحث إلى األمام والخروج بأشياء

جديدة منه". مجال في خبراتهم باستخدام الفريق وتمكن المحاكاة البيولوجية لكتلة جسيمات كوبوليمر علم على يكونوا لم أشياء على التعرف من لما مخالفة األولية النتائج كانت فعندما بها. البحث في الفريق استمر الفريق، يتوقعه كان يحدث. أن يمكن ما لمعرفة واالستكشاف وكان قراره في المواصلة واالنتظار يستحق كل "اكتشفوا نونيس: الدكتورة قالت العناء. هذا جسيمات مادة بيولوجية ذات تركيب فريد. ثم ولماذا هي الجسيمات بنية هذه بدراسة قاموا

مغايرة عن ما كانوا يتوقعونه". ووجد الفريق أن هذه الجسيمات تمتلك خصائص مفيدة و لها تطبيقات عديدة في مجاالت مختلفة مثل التقنية الحيوية والطب والحفز. كما استطاعوا الكهربائية بالتفاعل محددة بروتينات فصل على قادرة الجسيمات هذه أن وتبين الساكن امتصاص هذه البروتينات. يقول الدكتور بينيمان قدرتها هو الجسيمات تطبيقات هذه إحدى " :البروتينات. حيث بإطالق التحكم الكبيرة على يمكنها حمل العقاقير الطبية وإطالقها في مجرى

."الدم داخل الجسم بفاعلية

DIVERSITY | Continued from p1 تتمة الصفحة األولى:

THE UNIVERSITY celebrated the Spring 2014 graduation of 11

Ph.D. and 20 master’s degree candidates at a special graduation

luncheon on June 7.

The graduating students came from nine different countries,

including Saudi Arabia, China, Mexico, Pakistan and France, and

were joined by members of their families for the ceremony in the

University Library.

“We are all here to celebrate you,” said KAUST President

Jean-Lou Chameau in his remarks at the ceremony.

President Chameau noted the graduates had seen many

successes—and some failures—while completing their

research, but that this journey was essential, adding to

their character, ingenuity and creativity.

“Through all of this,” he said, “you deepened your

knowledge, contributed to new research and extended

KAUST’s influence in the world. You deserve our gratitude

and our highest accolades for your achievements.”

A number of KAUST professors added their

congratulations during the ceremony, advising the

graduates to aim high and always search for opportunities

to grow in their personal and professional lives.

“You should always strive to set the bar high so

everyone not only recognizes you, but also the fact that

you are from KAUST,” said Dr. Muhammad Mustafa

Hussain, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.

“We look forward to hearing from you in the

coming years and celebrating new achievements and

milestones as you take the values of KAUST into the

world,” President Chameau said at the conclusion

of the ceremony. He thanked King Abdullah Bin

Abdulaziz Al Saud for his generosity in giving the graduates

the “great gift” of their educations, and noted that “through

his vision, you are now empowered to be great scientists,

engineers and leaders.”

Research6 The BeaconSeptember 2014

SPRING 2014 GRADUATION CEREMONY HONORS 31 GRADUATING STUDENTS

As KAUST prepares to celebrate its five-year anniversary, the

community has a plethora of milestones to celebrate, not to mention

more than a few infamous events to look back on. Interestingly, a

natural disaster is the basis for ongoing, interdisciplinary research

at the University. Shortly after the University’s inauguration, over

140 millimeters of rain flooded much of the Jeddah region within a

mere eight hours, causing more than 100 fatalities and over $100M in

damage to area property and infrastructure.

“All this rain coming at the same time, in a matter of few hours,

meant the water had nowhere to go; so it went into the streets,” said

KAUST’s Ibrahim Hoteit, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences and

Engineering and Principal Investigator of the Earth Fluid Modeling

and Prediction group. Flash floods present a particular challenge in

arid areas with limited sewage systems.

“When it rains the water remains and it doesn’t get absorbed,”

said Hoteit. “We’re trying to reconstruct the rain event that happened

during the 2009 flood using modeling.”

He points to an impressive computerized model of Jeddah

on his monitor, capturing over 60,000 buildings, complete with

surrounding mountains and estimated paths taken by the water as

it flooded the city.

In an effort to build forecasting models meant to predict extreme

marine and weather events, Hoteit and his group observe the ocean

and the atmosphere. For any model to be effective, it’s important to

complement it with actual data from the whole region.

“In order to get a local model at the level of Jeddah, we first

go from very large-scale MENA-wide models all the way down to

a few hundred meters on Jeddah,” Hoteit outlined. To obtain the

MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region data, his team used

data from satellites and international sources.

As they eventually zoomed in over the Jeddah region, the local

data was sourced from PME (Presidency of Meteorology and

Environment). The data collected is then used to complement and

guide the atmospheric and weather models employed to forecast.

“We can predict these events one or two days in advance. So

we can greatly improve the prediction of these events and issue

appropriate warnings,” said Hoteit.

It’s important however to keep in mind that these models are

not certain. They are estimates of probability. “The question is

how good the estimate is,” said Hoteit. Many variables come

into play such as seasonality and various other observable

variables.

“What can be done is to form a database from simulations

based on known data,” Hoteit clarified. By assimilating known

data from various sources, the simulations are made to be as

accurate as possible, with an estimate of uncertainty. “The data

pushes the model toward the truth,” he emphasized.

These sophisticated models, taking into account uncertainties,

are achieved through highly multidisciplinary work involving

various teams at KAUST. Hoteit relies heavily on his

collaboration with the visualization and supercomputing teams.

“Visualization is important for us because people usually don’t

understand these things. But when you show them visually, they

start appreciating what we do,” explained Hoteit.

Working with data sets collected from Saudi Aramco, from

PME, as well as from satellite data, KAUST was able to develop

a 14-year model (from the years 2000 to 2014) of atmospheric

conditions over the Red Sea at a 10-kilometer resolution—one of

the highest of its kind in the world.

This atmospheric model also allows Hoteit’s group to work

on mapping the history of the waves in the Red Sea. “Once you

have the atmosphere, you can go down and simulate the rest.

We want to trace the history of everything that happened in

the Red Sea from both the oceanic and atmospheric points of

view” said Hoteit.

Understanding the behavior of ocean currents is also of vital

importance to develop a comprehensive picture to predict the

Red Sea’s physics and even biology. By assimilating data, Hoteit’s

group seeks to provide real-time “nowcasting” and forcasting

models for the Red Sea. This involves the long-term monitoring

and studying of fundamental processes in the Red Sea such as

cyclonic recirculation.

The group has, for instance, observed that the currents of

the Red Sea turn differently in the summer than they do in

the winter. “This has a very important impact on the biology,”

Hoteit explained. “It regulates and changes the food supply and

nutrients for the fish and corals. You cannot study the biology

without the currents. There is no way.”

KAUST scientists also observed that, due to heat and wind, the

Red Sea experiences a lot of evaporation. It loses around two

meters of water per year. It’s actually supplied back by water from

the Indian Ocean—a process known as overturning.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONSDetailed information about the Red Sea’s current circulation and

atmosphere is not only important for purely scientific reasons—it

has direct applications for industry. One specific example offered

by Hoteit is an oil company wanting to consult real-time current

circulation models in order to determine optimal drilling areas

for the purpose of mitigating the risk of spill propagation in the

event of an accident.

Using KAUST’s visualization and supercomputing resources,

Hoteit can produce a real-time model of the sea currents, before

the design is complete, to inform the company on where to drill.

The company may have certain conditions such as water speed

of less than 1 meter per second. Through the clicking or hovering

of a mouse, the computerized model can offer various points in

the sea map offering these specific conditions, as informed by the

underlying data sets.

An important project at KAUST, led by Burton Jones (Marine

Science), is a Marine Environmental research center. Jones’ group

is developing an observatory for the Red Sea. In partnership with

Saudi Aramco, their goal is to facilitate long-term monitoring

of the Red Sea. This strategic partnership also serves to help

minimize environmental impact in the areas of the Red Sea where

Saudi Aramco operates and aims to increase the sustainability of

the energy sector in the Kingdom.

Hoteit’s team works closely with this project, providing vital

models for the operation of autonomous robotic gliders deployed

in the Red Sea on observational survey missions. Since these

gliders operate at a speed of one meter per second, real-time

data about the speed and direction of Red Sea currents is vital. If

water is moving past the glider in the opposite direction it will go

backwards, stalling operational progress. To help mitigate these

challenges, the center could be provided with a 10-day forecast

accessible on the web in real-time.

“It’s thanks to a combination of high-performance computing,

visualization and physics,” said Hoteit. “Really, no other

institution has access to this type of technology.”

KAUST SCIENTISTS DEVELOPING MODELS TO PREDICT EXTREME EVENTS

“SOLID-state materials that have been designed and constructed in

a made-to-order manner may provide potential solutions to many

present-day challenges in energy and environmental sustainability,”

explained Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi, KAUST Professor of Chemical

Science and Associate Director of the University’s Advanced

Membranes and Porous Materials Research Center. “However, it is

very difficult to design these materials, as their assembly is done in

a one-step synthesis.”

Eddaoudi’s Functional Materials Design, Discovery and Development

(FMD3) research group concentrates on developing strategies to

permit the design of solid-state materials and the control of their

functionality. In particular, the researchers focus on introducing

certain specific properties and functionalities at the design stage prior

to assembly in pre-selected molecular building blocks (MBBs).

The group's research concentrates on metal-organic

frameworks (MOFs), a promising class of modular solid-state

materials, because MOFs can be constructed by the assembly-of-

predefined-MBBs approach.

“It is possible to mutually control the porous structure of MOFs

and their composition and functionality,” said Dr. Vincent Guillerm,

a post-doctoral fellow in Eddaoudi’s FMD3 group. “In our group,

we look for novel, highly connected MBBs and their transposition

into nets with high connectivity.”

“Targeting high-connectivity MBBs will reduce the number of

possible outcome nets and will therefore be of great help on the

road to the rational design of porous materials,” noted Eddaoudi.

In a paper recently published in Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/

NCHEM.1982), the group discovered and isolated highly connected

polynuclear clusters which are used as MBBs in the synthesis of

MOFs. In particular, they discovered and formed a new rare earth (RE)

nonanuclear carboxylate-based cluster ([RE]9(μ-OH)8(μ2-OH)3(O2C-

)18],(RE=Y, Tb, Er, Eu)), which was then used as an 18-connected

MBB to form a gea-MOF (gea-MOF-1) based on an unprecedented

(3,18)-connected net. “gea” stands for “Guillerm, Eddaoudi net A.”

“We then utilized the gea net as a blueprint to design and assemble

another MOF, called gea-MOF-2,” explained Dr. Guillerm. “In gea-

MOF-2, the 18-connected RE clusters are replaced by metal-organic

polyhedra which have been peripherally functionalized to have

the same connectivity as the RE clusters. The

metal-organic polyhedra act as supermolecular

building blocks, or SBBs, when they form

gea-MOF-2.”

“This required the challenging synthesis

of a very specific, asymmetric, trefoil

organic ligand,” noted Dr. Łukasz Weselinski,

postdoctoral fellow in the FMD3 group and

second author of the paper.

“The discovery of a (3,18)-connected MOF

followed by the deliberate transposition of

its topology to a predesigned second MOF

with a different chemical system validates

the prospective rational design of MOFs,”

Eddaoudi said. “Here we have shown that the

rational design of MOFs is indeed a reality,

thanks to the SBB approach.”

The research team also examined the catalytic

activity of gea-MOF-1 and found Vthat it is

catalytically active and has great potential for

hydrocarbon separation. “We found that it can

serve as an excellent recoverable catalyst for

the solvent-free synthesis of carbonates under

mild conditions,” explained Dr. Valerio D’Elia,

Research Scientist from the KAUST Catalysis

Center (KCC) and a co-author of the paper.

“Our work also revealed that gea-MOF-1 can

be employed as a C3H8/CH4 and n-C4H10/CH4

separation agent for natural gas upgrading

because of its high affinity for C3H8 and

n-C4H10 versus CH4 and CO2,” Dr. Youssef

Belmabkhout, co-author of the paper and

research scientist in the FMD3 group, noted.

The researchers state that finding new

nets that can be used as blueprints is

becoming increasingly rare today, as many

nets have already been predicted. “Our

novel (3,18)-connected gea net has a great

potential to be systematically targeted through the MBB or SBB

approach for the synthesis of made-to-order MOFs for specific

applications,” says Dr. Guillerm.

Eddaoudi hopes that through the team’s research, others will

realize the use of geometry and topology is often underestimated in

solid-state materials design. “Use of this is critical if one wants to

achieve made-to-order materials for specific applications,” he said.

In addition, he notes that the group’s work “also highlights the great

potential of MOFs for hydrocarbon separation, a feature which has

barely been explored so far.”

Research 7www.kaust.edu.sa September 2014

Image credit: Prof. M

ohamed Eddaoudi and Dr. Vincent G

uillerm.

MATERIALS BEYOND: KAUST SCIENTISTS PUT SOLID STATE MATERIALS DESIGN MYTH TO REST

to adapt to these new realities. The plants and crops currently

produced will have a hard time surviving.

“The problem is that meeting our future challenges will require

that we increase food production by about 50%. With the current

crops that we have we cannot do that. So the question is how can

we achieve this?” As Hirt further elaborates, “We need to actually

improve their performance under these heightened drought and

heat conditions.”

COUNTERING ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS WITH NATURAL MICROBES

There are two ways to do this. One way is to experiment with

genetic engineering to improve crops. The other way is to promote

the use of natural microbes. Hirt is exploring answers that can

be found through the capabilities of microbes. The upcoming

conference will particularly focus on rhizosphere microbes.

Environmental conditions, even more than the negative impact

of insects or bad microbes eating up the plants, is in fact the major

limiting factor in plant productivity. The particularity of rhizosphere

microbes is that they can increase plants’ abiotic stress tolerance

(caused by heat, drought, and salt). All plants can adapt at some

level to environmental changes but the more they are associated

with these rhizosphere microbes, the greater their stress tolerance is.

The rhizosphere (from the Greek word “rhiza”, meaning root), is

a soil area around a plant’s roots where microorganisms directly

interact with secretions or chemicals released by the plant’s roots.

As Hirt explained, in the past 15 years, thanks to sequencing

technologies, scientists have come to realize that the soil is the

richest source of microbes in the world. “People now have gotten

more and more interested, also through this technology, in the use

of microbes to help plants grow,” Hirt explained.

MAKING CURRENT PLANTS BETTERDrought conditions alone are responsible for up to 60% of

harvest losses, according to Hirt. “Our concept is not to have plants

that grow bigger and faster, it’s actually to preserve the capacity

of current crops to fruitfully produce without dying off due to a

drought period.”

We have evidence right here at KAUST of plants growing in the

seawater with the surrounding mangroves and other vegetation

growing along the shores of the Red Sea. “They are basically

drinking seawater,” said Hirt. “So the question is how do they do

that? How can they live on that?”

Since this vegetation proves that it’s possible to actually use

seawater to grow crops, it means that we might be able to help

current crops to do the same.

“I’ve been working on plant stress biology for 25 years, with a

focus on abiotic stress,” said Hirt. In recent years, he came across

an example of a remarkable fungus from a desert in Pakistan with

the unique ability to interact with any kind of plant species—crops,

cereals, and others to make them strongly resistant to drought

stress.

This discovery gave Dr. Hirt the strong impression that there must

exist other microbial organisms around the world that can do this.

AN INTERNATIONAL PROJECT TO DISCOVER THE DESERTS OF THE WORLD

“Nobody has really gone in-depth to identify those microbes,”

said Hirt. So he thought that KAUST would be an ideal place

to pursue desert research. The Desert Rhizosphere Microbes

Conference is the kickoff for an international collaboration,

helmed by Hirt and his colleague—extreme environments

microbiologist Dr. Daniele Daffonchio—to go into different

deserts of the world. With the collaboration of KAUST's Center

for Bioinformatics (CBRC), this program will foster transnational

collaborations among several institutions in Oman, the United

Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Jordan, as well as African and South

American states.

Aiming to become a global knowledge base of desert rhizosphere

microbes, the DARWIN21 project was inspired by the scientific

voyages undertaken by Charles Darwin, aboard the HMS Beagle,

in the 19th century. This project now aspires to complete a similar

voyage of discovery in the 21st century. The DARWIN21 project will

go about exploring the various deserts on the planet and study the

plants and microbes that grow there.

Saudi Arabia is an ideal place for prospecting different types of

deserts since, as Hirt pointed out, “we already have very different

types of deserts in Saudi Arabia: inland deserts, salty ones, less

salty ones—so there are very different conditions.”

His group of international scientists, many of whom will be

present at KAUST for the conference, are seeking answers as to how

these desert plants are able to survive. Are there different microbes

that help them do that? What are the distinguishing factors tied to

these microbes?

“We’ve got the tools to analyze spots on Earth that are yet to be

discovered,” said Hirt. “I think KAUST can be a great incubator to

make this happen.”.

USING SCIENCE TO FEED | Continued from p1

Prof. Mohamed Eddaoudi’s Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development group (FMD3) discovered a special minimal edge transitive net with high connectivity, pictured here. The image illustrates its use as a blueprint for the design and construction of metal organic frameworks (MOFs). The (3,18)-connected blueprint and the supermolecular building block (SBB) approach enabled the deliberate design and synthesis of a novel MOF.

Community8 The Beacon

MARÍA FERNANDA Ph.D. candidate María Fernanda Contreras

Gerenas has fully embraced all that KAUST

has to offer in her five years here. Active

in many pursuits, she is a former member

of the KAUST female football club. “It was

a nice experience. I got to share with the girls, participate in a

tournament, and improve my football skills,” she notes. Maria

hasn’t stopped with football, however. In addition to frequently

playing tennis and swimming, she earned her PADI diver’s

certification, and then completed the advanced diver’s course.

“KAUST offers a pretty high life quality. In terms of recreational

facilities and travel opportunities, it is a nice place to be.”

Maria received her master’s in Bioscience, and then decided

to stay on to pursue her Ph.D., also in Bioscience. As she notes,

“I did my bachelor’s thesis in biophysics and my bachelor’s

degree was in physics. I wanted to learn biology, which I did

during my masters. Now during my Ph.D., I am combining the

two disciplines in a potential biomedical application.” Working

under the guidance of Timothy Ravasi and Jürgen Kosel, Maria

now finds that she is often the mentor, affirming, “My Ph.D.

research topic has drawn the attention of master’s students who

are doing their theses in topics related to it. I taught them the

basics of cell culture, and then they were able to be independent

in their own lab work.”

Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Maria earned her

bachelor’s degree in physics from the National University of

Colombia (Bogotá), and has done internships at the Membrane

Engineering Lab of The University of California at Davis (U.S.),

and at the Laboratory of Materials and Low Temperatures at

the University of Campinas (Brazil). A recipient of the KAUST

Academic Excellence Award, Maria’s research is profound in both

complexity and in its potential.

“KAUST has been more than just a university to me. Here

I have found life-long friendships, and I found the love of

my life - to whom I got married around year and a half ago.

Being at KAUST has also allowed me to travel to locations

that previously seemed unreachable, and that I have never

thought I would visit at my young age. Last but not least,

KAUST has provided me with everything I need to fulfill my

professional goals - nice research facilities, personnel, and

working environment.”.

NATHANIEL ROBINSONTexas-born Nathaniel Robinson has been

around – including some ups and some

downs, noting, “I’ve been fortunate to

survive a series of events - from cancer to

sinking a kayak in the Artic Sea and then

swimming for my life to the shore. Interesting things seem to

happen to me. So if I’m on your snorkeling trip you may want

to think about rebooking; but on the positive side, I’ve made it

through all of them with memories to hold.” And many stories to

tell, it sounds.

Nate (as he prefers), has lived across the United States from

Alaska to Florida, and spent time in Peru, Mexico, and Oman –

before making it to KAUST. “I enjoy being able to expand my

views, approaches to projects and challenges, and a diversity of

experiences. KAUST offers the opportunity for each of those. I’d

like to see more of the world and learn more languages, which is

also something KAUST can help to achieve,” he said.

With degrees in engineering, technology management,

economics and finance, Nate brings his considerable resume and

experience as manager of the Advanced Engagement and Support

Department, within Saudi Initiatives, asserting, “I like to think

that I bring a nice diversity to any position. Having worked in

education, engineering, business development, and management,

it provides me a variety of angles to solve problems, establish

processes, and so on.”

In his spare time, Nate enjoys all types of music and enjoys

reading. However, it doesn’t sound like he spends too much time

on the couch. As fit as any man half his age, Nate used to train in

mixed martial arts (MMA), and now works at boxing, plyometrics

and strength training. He loves competitive sports, adding, “I

used to play goalkeeper in football/soccer in college, then later

in city leagues in the USA and Mexico.” At KAUST, Nate offers

his expertise to anyone up for the challenge, providing physical

training, strength training and conditioning..

MY UNIVERSITY

September 2014

For Jawaher Almutlaq, Abdulmohsen AlBelushi,

Shahd Bawarith, and Yousef Alowayed, conducting

research at KAUST this summer as part of the

KAUST Gifted Student Program (KGSP) has been

an unparalleled opportunity for academic and

personal growth.

KGSP sponsors academically gifted Saudi

students earning undergraduate degrees in science

and engineering subjects at universities in the

United States and prepares them for eventual

matriculation at KAUST. A major component of the

program is the opportunity for students to conduct

research at KAUST during their undergraduate

studies. This year, 43 students are carrying out

summer research at KAUST.

“My summer has certainly been enjoyable,” said

Yousef, who will be a junior at MIT in the coming

academic year, and who has been working with

Assistant Professor Osman Bakr on developing

solar cells. “It has been great to get a feel of the

different kinds of research going on at KAUST

before coming back here for my master’s degree.

And I have really learned a lot.”

“KAUST is wonderful,” agreed Jawaher, who

worked with Assistant Professor Iman Roqan

to study the optical properties and structure of

gadolinium (Gd)-doped zinc oxide thin films, which

are used in many applications, including solar

cells and biosensors. “I previously worked with

metal alloys at my home university, Pennsylvania

State University, so my research at KAUST was a

good opportunity to explore a different class of

materials,” she said.

Jawaher will complete her bachelor’s degree in

Materials Science and Engineering next year, and

plans to study Nanotechnology at KAUST for her

master’s degree.

Shahd, who studies Bioengineering at

George Mason University, has been working

with Professor Klaus-Viktor Peinemann in the

Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center

(AMPM), where she has learned how to produce

composite membranes.

“I don’t think I could have done this kind

of cutting-edge research with such amazing

professors and so much support anywhere else,”

said Shahd, who will be a sophomore in the next

academic year. “I originally wanted to study law

in university, but now I definitely feel a future in

science is worthwhile.”

Abdulmohsen says he discovered a new field to

explore during his summer working with Associate

Professor Ravi Samtaney in the Fluid and Plasma

Simulation Laboratory. “My research at KAUST has

made me interested in a new area, computational

fluid mechanics,” he explained. He will be a senior

in the autumn at Johns Hopkins University, where

he is majoring in Mechanical Engineering.

“I am definitely excited to return to KAUST for

my master’s degree,” he said. “In the future, I hope

to go for a PhD so I can work in the research field.”

“Knowledge gained from textbooks and in

classrooms is important,” noted Jawaher, “but it

is not enough. My summer research at KAUST

has enabled me to understand my major better,

and I feel that opportunities like this provided

through KGSP will make it easier to contribute

to the advancement of science and technology

in the development of my country. That is my

greatest motivation.”

KGSP is administered by KAUST’s Saudi

Initiatives organization. Now in its fifth year, the

program cultivates the next generation of Saudi

leaders in science, research, and innovation.

KGSP STUDENTS CONDUCT INSPIRING SUMMER RESEARCH AT KAUST

Victor M. Calo, Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi, and Dr. Heribert Hirt.

“Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers 2014” is an

authoritative listing of the world’s preeminent scientific minds

and noteworthy intellects. Those who appear have passed a

stringent set of criteria. Researchers who are considered and

evaluated have written the greatest number of reports found to

be highly cited by their peers. Those who make the final listing

rank among the top 1% of most cited researchers for their subject

field and year of publication.

KAUST Vice President of Research, Dr. Jean M.J. Frechet was

noted for his contributions in Chemistry.

Dr. Victor M. Calo, an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences and

Engineering, was honored in the Computer Science classification.

Associate Director of Advanced Membranes and Porous

Materials, Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi, was also recognized in

Chemistry. His work with the Advanced Membranes and Porous

Materials Center team was also honored in Thompson Reuters’

book, “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds 2014.”

Dr. Heribert Hirt, Professor of Bioscience and the Associate

Director of the Center for Desert Agriculture, was honored for his

work in the category of Plant and Animal Science.

HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHERS | Continued from p1