Dr. Ahmed Yousef completed his MSc and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. The focus of his graduate work was protein interactions and cellular networks, using viral oncogenes as tools to gain insight into these processes. His interest in commercializing science led him to earn a Master of Business Administration degree from the Richard Ivey School of Business in Canada, where his focus was entrepreneurship and the biotechnology sector. He also trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in Los Angeles, where he studied the biochemistry of DNA replication.
After completing his business degree, Dr. Yousef worked in intellectual property management, and was inolved in patent prosecution, IP licenscing, and spin-off company formation. Just before joining Khalifa University, he was a faculty member at the Masdar Institute, where his lab studied environmental and water microbiology. While at Masdar Institute, he also taught graduate courses in applied microbiology and science entrepreneurship .
At Khalifa University, Dr. Yousef's laboratory studies microbial communities that exist in different environments, with a focus on those that develop in wastewater treatment systems. He also has an interest in wastewater epidemiology and tracking antimicrobial resistance markers in wastewater. Finally, his lab alos works on projects aimed at developing biotechnology from microbes that are present in various UAE natural environments.
The Yousef lab is looking to recruit MSc and PhD students (Spring 2023 and Fall 2023).