We are excited to invite you to the Saudi Postdoctoral Association (SPDA) Launch Event, which will feature the first session of our webinar series, From Postdoc to Leader, with Professor Osman Bakr (KAUST).

The event will introduce SPDA’s mission and vision, our team, the community we are building, and how postdocs can get involved. We will also share our upcoming initiatives. 

Following the launch, Professor Bakr will join us for a conversation and share insights from his postdoctoral experience and leadership journey. He will reflect on lessons learned and perspectives that may be helpful as postdocs navigate their own paths. We will conclude with an open Q&A and audience discussion. 

Osman Bakr is a Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and Vice Provost (Fellowships, Education, Training, and Continuing Education) at KAUST. 

He earned a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT (2003), as well as an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University (2009). His research group works on the design and synthesis of hybrid and inorganic materials, generating breakthrough applications in solar energy harvesting, photonics, and optoelectronics. He has published over 377 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and over 15 patents and invention disclosures. His group’s research has appeared in leading interdisciplinary publications such as Science, Nature Energy, Nature Photonics, Nature Nanotechnology, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Joule, and others.

Professor Bakr is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM), and an Associate Editor at ACS Materials Letters (American Chemical Society). He was selected as a Young Scientist by the World Economic Forum (2016) and as a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of ACS Energy Letters (2016) and Chemistry of Materials (2017). 

He was awarded the SABIC Endowed Presidential Career Development Chair (2013); the Innovator Under 35 Award in the Arab World by the MIT Technology Review – Arab Edition (2016); The King’s Award for Inventors and the Gifted (2018); the Asian Rising Stars Lectureship (2019); the Abdul Hameed Shoman Arab Researchers Award in Basic Sciences and the Almarai Distinguished Scientist Prize (2020); the Kroll Medal & Prize by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (2021); and the Kuwait Prize by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (2022). Times Higher Education named Bakr one of the ten leading university researchers worldwide in the field of “perovskite solar cells” (2018), and Clarivate designated Bakr as a Highly Cited Researcher in both Materials Science and Chemistry.

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