Week-long Immersive Experience Includes Interactive Lectures by Faculty, Utilizing State-of-the-Art Facilities and Team-based Activities
Nearly 200 high school students from across the UAE participated in the Khalifa University of Science and Technology’s 2025 Winter School in Chemistry and Physics, learning about the bachelor’s programs, and gaining experience in hands-on lab experiments and molecular modeling.
Titled ‘Enhancing the Sciences for the Future’, the 2025 Winter School in Chemistry and Physics was organized from 15-19 December at the Sas Al Nakhl (SAN) Campus to demonstrate the status of Khalifa University as a leader in science education and inspire student participants to pursue their studies by enrolling in Chemistry and Physics bachelor’s programs. The participants were selected out of 1,041 applicants from 80 high schools in the UAE.
Participants had week-long immersive experience, after being introduced to fundamental concepts through carefully designed interactive lectures by faculty, utilizing state-of-the-art facilities, and team-based activities aimed at fostering collaboration and problem-solving skills.
Khalifa University has already registered several milestones in chemistry and physics worldwide, including becoming a member of the ATLAS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, located in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, KU became a member of the KM3NeT, one of the largest neutrino telescopes located in the Mediterranean Sea. Furthermore, the Physics department has a wide spectrum that spans from Material Sciences, Medical and Biophysics, and Optics. This variety of research and educational programs greatly increases the visibility of the Khalifa University College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, facilitating student exchange programs and contributing to impactful scientific publications.
More recently, a physics PhD graduate won gold medal and first-place prize for his work on ‘Novel Nanoparticles for Targeting and Imaging of Cancer Cells’, at the fourth Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition organized during the 2025 AIChE Annual Meeting.
In Chemistry, three teams from Khalifa University won top prizes across three research categories at the 13th edition of the Sharjah Sustainability Award for the 2024–2025 academic year. The awards were presented for developing an innovative solution to restore coral reefs using steel slag, new materials to recover gold from electronic waste, and a greener pathway for meeting the rising global demand for lithium. The Chemistry department organized the first Doctoral Sprint (thesis competition) for the 2025-2026 academic year through the AcerS UAE chapter to promote competition and enhance science communication skills among UAE Science graduates.
Professor David Sheehan, Chair, Chemistry, said: “At Khalifa University, we envision a future where curiosity drives breakthroughs. By immersing young minds in real-world science and cutting-edge research settings, Khalifa University goes beyond teaching chemistry and physics — to shaping the innovators who will define the future of technology and sustainability. Through immersive programs like the 2025 Winter School in Chemistry and Physics, we empower participants to transform chemistry and physics into engines of innovation that will redefine technology and sustainability for future generations.”
Clarence Michael
English Editor Specialist
