January 2011

CommenCement

KCC opening and SympoSium

Winter enrichmentProgram

2011

December 16 marked the first commencement at King Abdullah Un ive r s i ty o f Sc i ence and Technology, attended by nearly 300 master’s degree candidates, many culminating some 16 months of dedicated study. “Today’s celebra-tion is one of historic significance as the world’s youngest and most ambitious university graduates its first class… an occasion of bold aspiration and remarkable accom-plishment. We salute the vision, generosity and unflagging support that our founder, King Abdullah, has given us in this venture,” said KAUST trustee Frank rhodes in his commencement speech.

The KAUST catalysis center (Kcc) opened on December 6 with over 120 international delegates in attendance. The combination of its interdisciplinary state-of-the-art laboratories and contiguous core facilities was the envy of many of the visiting researchers. “The center is probably the best in the world…superbly equipped,” said Professor Herbert roesky from Goettingen, “and this has been a wonder-ful high-level meeting.” Professor Kazunari Domen looks forward to a dynamic relationship and the exchange of postdocs working in the field between KAUST and the University of Tokyo.

Dr. Feras Lafi, a scientist in the red Sea Laboratory of Integrative Systems biology, has been investigating the unusual microbial communities in red Sea sponges. This is the first time that there has been research access to these extraordinary sea creatures from the coast of Saudi Arabia, and the initial results suggest that the sponges are of significant interest to the scientific community. As part of the KAUST Global collaborative research (Gcr) program, Dr. Lafi and his Gcr partners recently published an article in the International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal (part of the Nature Publishing Group) regard-ing the sequencing of the microbial communities of several sponge spe-cies from the red Sea. This builds on Dr. Lafi’s Ph.D. thesis on poribacte-ria, a sponge specific phylum, at the University of Queensland in north-eastern Australia.

marine sponges are one of the old-est life forms on the planet, dating back some 600 million years and possibly much longer; in some places they may occupy most of the avail-able surfaces on the coral reef or the seabed. These multicellular animals have a simple body plan and their tissues show little differentiation or

coordination. Fixed in one place by a stalk or by settling in various under-water objects, sponges filter seawater through their pores, extract bacte-ria and use them as a food source, releasing the filtered water via the osculum (the exhalent opening, see fig.1) at the rate of up to 24,000L/day per 1-kg of sponge.

The red Sea, the warm and high saline body of water abutting the KAUST campus, is a largely unex-plored marine ecosystem. Its coral reefs, some 2000km in length, nour-ish over 200 recorded species of sponge, yet few of these have ever been studied. In the study described, the sponges, their microbial commu-nities and the surrounding seawater were all examined using genetic sequencing techniques.

What makes these sponge-microbe associations so intriguing to researchers? The soft sponges being examined cannot rely on their hard shell for protection, but rather on their chemical arsenal to sur-vive attacks. Over millions of years of evolution, these sponges, delicate as they may appear, have developed a strong chemical defense system to protect themselves from predators. Their evident success, witnessed by

their continuing existence, may also be due to their relationship with their microbial symbionts, common ances-tors for the more familiar microbes of today. recent studies showed that a considerable percentage of these chemicals originate from the microbial community residing in the sponge tissue.

It is well known that these diverse microorganisms can constitute over half of the volume of a sponge, but their association with their host remains a puzzle. We do know that different microbes can be sources of food, pathogens, parasites or mutual-istic symbionts. Symbiotic microbes need to be able to compete with other microbes present in the water in order to colonize the sponge and to do so, they have evolved to produce an array of different chemicals that are able, for example, to stop the cell cycle of competing microbe species. Such compounds may achieve this by interfering with the cell cycle of the cancer cell (these chemicals may have anti-cancer properties) or by selectively killing other species (these chemicals may have anti-microbial peptides or antibiotic properties). It is the biotechnological poten-tial of sponge-microbe associations

that fuels the research that Dr. Lafi pursues and makes their focused investigation compelling for novel drug discovery.

marine sponges are among the ani-mal kingdom’s most prolific sources of novel pharmaceutical compounds. Natural products have long been used to treat human disease (aspi-rin from the willow and digitalis from the foxglove, for example) and many marine bioactive compounds have been evaluated for properties as diverse as anti-inflammatory and anthelmintic.

There are different ways you can screen compounds for bioactiv-ity. One method involves isolating a fraction of the sponge to see if it can trigger a reaction in a human cell line. Usually many compounds are screened in parallel using robotic screening devices. Sequencing the gene of these symbiotic microbes using meta-genomics or meta-tran-scriptomic approaches may speed up this screening process. Using com-putational analysis to predict those pathways (groups of proteins work-ing together) that are responsible for the chemical production of such bio-active molecules can help to target a certain family of molecules. In the

Turn to p. 4–5

continued on p.2

red SeA SpONgeSred SeA SpONgeScontinued on p.3

continued on p.2

قام الدكتور فراس اليف و هو أحد الباحثني يف خمترب البحر األمحر لبيولوجيا األنظمة املتكاملة يف جامعة امللك عبد اهلل للعلوم والتقنية بكتابة حبثه العلمي الذي ناقش فيه املجتمعات امليكروبية غري العادية واملتواجدة يف اسفنج البحر األمحر.

Top left: A detail the inner mesh that makes up a sponge.Main: A red Sea Sponge.

www.kaust.edu.sa

be CONthe

January 2011 / Muharram 1432 Issue No. 5

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

INSIde: Commencement 3 Wep 4-5 Wep Schedule Insert

research 6-7 Community 8News 1-2

LoREM ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse mollis, tellus in volutpat lacinia, est diam accumsan libe-ro, a tincidunt lectus leo bibendum sem. Vestibulum ut ipsum arcu, eu placerat lorem. Nullam eget metus lorem. Nullam

egestas placerat mi nec fringilla. Sed quis urna ut urna dignissim mollis. Quisque iaculis, eros et porta ornare, ipsum odio pulvinar risus, in interdum libero erat com-modo velit. Donec non dui a odio pharetra tempus vitae a augue. Nullam in metus sem, vitae molestie sem.

- THE BEACON Editorial

KauSt SChoolS Winter ConCertStudentS from the KauSt

Schools showcased their musi-

cal talent through three Winter

concerts held december 12-19.

grades 1-5 shared inspirational

songs on two separate nights with

the theme of “Lighting our Way

to Peace.” Sixth through twelfth

graders demonstrated their talents

in singing, percussion, guitar, and

piano, giving audiences a taste of

rhythms from around the world.

Student WinS BeSt paper aWard at pgC mohammed Zahed Khan, a Ph.d.

student in the Photonics Lab,

won Best Student Paper award at

the Photonics global conference

(Pgc), held in Singapore december

14-16, 2010. the conference

successfully attracted over 300

delegates from 39 countries and is

a biennial event aimed at fostering

interactions among international

academics, researchers, practi-

tioners, and students across broad

disciplines in photonics.

Final angKlung perFormanCe

at the office of the arts’ in-house

international concert on december

14, the angklung music group

gave their final performance. Led by

class of 2010 Burhannudin Sutisna,

this delightful group of musicians

had become a KauSt community

favorite, dazzling audiences with

their energetic and visually engag-

ing performances.

Shell JoinS KiCpeconomic development’s KauSt

industry collaboration Program

(KicP) recently welcomed Shell

as a strategic partner, optimiz-

ing mutual interests in developing

further collaboration research and

joining the KicP is an essential

first step towards establishing

a partnership that will focus on

longer term emerging technolo-

gies, with the potential to develop

future game-changing solutions

for the energy sector.

Write to us at [email protected]

Kcc Opening and Symposium continued from p.1

The Beacon, Issue 5, January 2011. Published by The Communications Department, King abdullah university of Science and technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia. Contact Salah Sindi +966 (2) 808-3221, email [email protected], or Christopher Sands +966 (2) 808-3228, email [email protected]

© King Abdullah University, of Science and Technology. Printed on partially recycled paper.

IN brIef

Lorem ipsum photo case of compounds with the potential to kill cancer cells, these will be tested against a set of different cell lines developed by the National cancer Institute. One of the most recent success stories can be found on this page, “Yellow Slimy”.

Wi th the suppor t o f the coastal and marine resources core Lab (cmrcL), the sponges were collected from four different habi-tats in the red Sea together with samples of the sea-water surrounding them. The KAUST team together with Gcr partners Dr. On On Lee (lead author of the paper) and fellow scientists from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology led by Professor Pei-Yuan Qian used pyrosequencing to “reveal highly diverse and species-specific microbial communities in sponges from the red Sea”. Scientists cannot simply culture these marine microorganisms as only 1% of environmental microbes can be cultured in laboratory conditions. That is why Dr. Timothy ravasi, Associate Professor of bioengineering, and his group at KAUST are using genomic and transcrip-tomic methods to better understand the relationship between bacteria and sponges.

Pyrosequencing can characterize a sample quickly and accurately and is the method of choice to explore marine microbiomes. In addition to the four quite new phyla they identified using this method, Dr. Lafi and team discovered that many of the bacteria within the sponges were absent from the surrounding

seawater, although these microbial communities were consistent in the same sponges taken from different places. There are two ways in which it is thought that sponges acquire bacteria. During the filter-feeding process described, sponges need to be able to rec-

ognize symbionts possibly using their innate immune system. Alternatively, parent sponges may transfer microbes to their progeny through reproduction; these same microbes have prob-ably co-evolved over many generations and no longer have any presence in seawater. It

would seem that red Sea sponges have highly sponge-specific or even sponge-species-spe-cific microbial communities that persist despite their absence from the surrounding environment. much work remains to be done to explore this diversity and its implications.

To more fully understand the potential for sponge research in the red Sea, in another example of inter-disciplinary collaboration, faculty in the red Sea research center at KAUST have contributed their expertise to characterize the diversity and richness of local sponge communities. Dr. michael berumen and Dr. Lafi began this process earlier this year by spending time surveying several coral reefs in the vicinity of KAUST and literally counting different sponges according to their species. This informa-tion, the first systematic census of sponges in the

Saudi Arabian red Sea, will be compiled not only in order to understand this unique ecosystem and to motivate conservation efforts, but also to guide the team’s future work with sponges. In particular, it will be important to ensure that species targeted for further biomedical applications are sufficiently com-mon in the red Sea to make the studies feasible. Such collaborations embody KAUST’s goals to create part-nerships among diverse fields. Dr. Lafi and all the researchers involved in the sponge project anxiously await more exciting finds from these incredible ani-mals found just off the shores of KAUST.

Sponges continued from p.1

For over a century, catalysis has been a process of trial and error, but the focus of center Director Professor Jean marie basset is on catalysis by design, embracing the four KAUST generational themes of energy, food, water, and the environment. eminent speakers, including Nobel Prize winner Professor robert Grubbs from cALTecH, considered the sub-ject in challenging lectures and lively discussions.

Delegates attending the engaging two-day sympo-sium that followed the inauguration were particularly interested in the talks given by representatives from industry from all over the world, evidently impor-tant thinkers in their companies, and their perspective on the future of catalysis as a promising tool for energy challenges, green chemistry, and sustainable development.

"YeLLoW SLimY"one of the latest cancer drugs to gain approval from the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration results from over 26 years of

multidisciplinary research at several institutions. In response

to a request from the USA’s National Cancer Institute,

marine biologists worldwide worked together to harvest

a whole metric ton of soft sponges of the Lissodendoryx

species, affectionately known as “yellow slimy”, in order to

extract just 300mg of halichondrin B. This chemical was

sought for preliminary trials because of its exquisite anti-

cancer activity in different cell lines. The collection was

supported by the New Zealand government, among oth-

ers, which gave permission for the deepwater dredging of

1000kg of the sponge. After determination of its molecu-

lar structure, animal testing and latterly, successful phase

3 clinical trials using human subjects, its synthetic form,

Eribulin, was licensed in November 2010 for the treatment

of late stage breast cancer.

COMMeNCeMeNTThe foundation class, robed in their

KAUST graduation gowns, processed in their academic divisions to Discovery Walk where assembled guests enjoyed a view of the Red Sea. After the national anthem, graduating student Saeed Al-Noman recited a verse from the Qur’an (see the back page) before President Choon Fong Shih welcomed the students, their families, faculty, and visitors.

His Excellency Minister Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, spoke movingly of the realiza-tion of King Abdullah’s dream for this new house of wisdom. He saw KAUST as integral to the revitalization of the local knowledge economy, providing a human bridge connecting the Kingdom with nations, universities, research

institutions, business, and government sectors worldwide to achieve synergies for the attainment of shared goals.

The student commencement speaker, May Alqurashi, a graduate in Biological Engineering, spoke of her experience as a member of the founding class, of her hopes and her dreams. She encouraged her fellow students to feel very proud as they graduate.

President Emeritus of Cornel l University and KAUST trustee, Dr. Frank Rhodes challenged the assembled graduates to make a difference as they provide “new solutions, new energy and new insight” as they are embraced by a world eagerly awaiting their skills and commitment.

As the sun set over the Red Sea, stu-dents from some 32 different countries, united in their feelings of anticipa-tion and accomplishment, crossed the stage. They were presented individu-ally to President Shih, who conferred their degrees, by their appropriate deans: Professors David Keyes, Kenneth Minneman and Mohamed-Slim Alouini.

Countries most strongly represented among graduates were China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Almost a quarter of the students were female. over a third of the graduates will continue to study at KAUST for a Ph.D. and a significant number has been offered jobs in the Kingdom.

preSIdeNT ShIh’S WelCOMe reMArKS

Congratulating the Class of 2010, President Choon Fong Shih told

students and guests, "Today we celebrate the beginning – the com-mencement – of a new chapter in the lives of 292 pioneering graduate students. Today we gather on the shores of the Red Sea, inspired by King Abdullah's noble vision of a university, a new House of Wisdom."

President Shih continued: "Today you go forth as KAUST's founding alumni. Take the name and spirit of our University and go forth and make a difference. Take the knowledge you gained here and go forth in fruitful service to Saudi Arabia and all peoples of the world. Through your life and work, you and those who follow in your footsteps can help grow our University as King Abdullah's living gift for this and future generations."

January 2011 The BeaconNeWS2

frANK rhOdeS: INTervIeW“It feels glorious! There are so many things

to celebrate and I will feel delighted and

honored to be at the commencement to see

the first fruits of King Abdullah’s vision!”

Professor Frank rhodes, chairman of the

KAUST board of Trustees, has witnessed

many graduation ceremonies in his long and prestigious career,

but commented on the difference with this occasion: “There will

never be another foundation class.” It is the detail that Professor

rhodes has noticed on his trips to KAUST (a campus soccer game , for

example) that he sees as evidence that KAUST has become a real

community with a truly self-sufficient and collegial feel. He con-

tinues to be quite astonished “to have witnessed KAUST rise from

the ground and become a working university in just a little over a

thousand days from the concept.”

SAeed Al-NOMANA Yemeni born and raised in Dammam, is going to

continue his studies in clean combustion. He was

privileged to recite verses from the Qur’an at the

KAUST commencement.“The research culture here is amazing, and in the future I hope to return to my under-graduate university in the Eastern Province

and bring many new ideas to the academic and research environ-ment in Saudi Arabia.”

WAIl bAMhAIrA Saudi born and raised in Jeddah, is a master’s

student considering several offers for positions in

industry in Saudi Arabia.“KAUST has been a golden opportunity for me. I always hope to be in ‘the first row’ and in the future when people ask me, I will be proud to say, ‘I graduated from KAUST’.”

AlfONSO CArAveO-freSCASA mexican materials science student who will

be studying for his doctorate in nano-functional

materials.“I have friends from so many different places, and I have had to learn more about my own culture to be able to share it with others. I am excited and proud to have

achieved my academic goal.”

NAThAN bAllA chemical and biological engineer who finished

his studies here in August and is working for a

start-up company, e2e materials, developing bio-

degradable composites in upstate New York.“I especially value the creativity, leadership and other less tangible skills that I devel-oped because of the cultural richness of the

KAUST community. One of the reasons I came to KAUST was to develop links in The Kingdom in the hopes that I can come back to work here.”

JeSSICA KA YINg lAMborn and raised in Hong Kong

has just completed a master’s

in the Applied mathematics and

computational Sciences program

and is seeking employment in the

Kingdom. Here at KAUST there

is the opportunity to know each other well ... not only

people from differen countries and cultures, but across

different academic programs.“The friendships I have made here will be something I keep with me as I leave.”

JUSTINe MINKAn American who came here to study for her mas-

ter’s and will continue here to do a doctorate in

electrical engineering.

“When I came here to KAUST I knew that by taking that step I would be bridging cul-tures and that was exactly what I wanted to be doing. KAUST is like a dream. “

IN TheIr OWN WOrdS

preSIdeNT ShIhAs he prepared to confer degrees at com-

mencement, President choon Fong Shih

anticipated feelings of pride, joy, grati-

tude, and optimism. The pride is invested in

the “pioneering graduate students who are

beginning a new chapter in their lives; the

joy at reaching this significant milestone in the journey towards

realizing King Abdullah’s vision for (the) University as a new

‘House of Wisdom’; and gratitude for the countless individuals

who have worked long and hard to help (the university) reach this

day of beginnings and optimism for (the) founding alumni making

a difference wherever they go and, through their lives and work,

contributing to (the) mission of bringing benefit to Saudi Arabia

and the world.”

MAY AlqUrAShIA Saudi born and raised in Jeddah, was the KAUST student commencement speaker. She will continue her studies at KAUST

for a Ph.D. in biological engineering.

“Culturally, starting at KAUST was really tough. But I realize that for others coming here, it was also a challenge, and to have new experiences you have to leave your comfort zone. We have learned that stereotypes are often inac-curate. I look forward to giving back to KAUST in the future.”

hIS exCelleNCY, MINISTer Al-NAIMIIn his commencement speech, the minister

spoke of “King Abdullah’s dream to educate

and train the next generation of scholars

and scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs

to encourage global collaboration in search

of transcendent new technologies, discoveries and solutions.” He

encouraged the pioneering graduates “to consider remaining in the

Kingdom to lead the transformation of (the) economy through sci-

ence and technology, innovation and enterprise.” Acknowledging

their help in shaping the dynamic and diverse community at

KAUST, he urged them to be “ambassadors for KAUST.” He pointed

out that KAUST is heir to “one of the greatest and longest scien-

tific traditions in human history and a harbinger of a new era for

economic and social development for people everywhere through

education and research.”

NAdhMI Al-NASrWhen he thought about the students col-

lecting their diplomas at commencement,

Nadhmi Al-Nasr, executive Vice-President

of Administration and Finance at KAUST,

anticipated feelings of pride “like those of

a father.” He insisted that it was the deci-

sion of the students to come to KAUST - at a time when there

was neither faculty, nor curriculum nor buildings - that gave the

administrative team “the joy, hope and promise for the future

(they) needed so badly”.

Since the arrival of the first class in the fall of 2009, mr. Al-Nasr

has witnessed the development of the students’ “maturity, per-

spective, passion, and wisdom” and sees in them the potential for

world-class leadership. He anticipates the development of a unique

and special relationship between the founding class and their alma

mater, KAUST.

“The book about the creation of KAUST iswritten and closed. Commencement is the begin-ning of a new book, a book that will never close…”

commencement continued from p.2

كما شهد تاريخ 16 ديسمرب أول حفل ختريج يف جامعة امللك عبد اهلل للعلوم والتقنية ل 292 من طلبة درجة املاجستري.

January 2011Commencement 3www.thebeacon.kaust.edu.sa

الربنامج الشتوي التكميلي 2011يعقد يف الفرتة من 15 إىل 31 يناير 2011 الربنامج الشتوي التكميلي للعام األكادميي 2011 ، ويعقد الربنامج بافتتاحية خاصة مساء

اجلمعة 14 يناير. فيما ستكون الفعاليات واملحاضرات واحللقات الدراسية هلذا الربنامج متاحة جلميع منسويب جامعة امللك عبد اهلل للعلوم و التقنية و املجتمع.

و اجلديد هلذا العام هو موقع الربنامج اخلاص علي االنرتنت و الذي يوفر معلومات عن كل الفعاليات و الدورات، فضال عن امكانية التسجيل عرب اإلنرتنت، والذي سيكون الزاميًا و ذلك للتأكد من توفرإامكانية املشاركة يف الفعاليات، و حىت ال تفوتك الفرصة سارع بالتسجيل! كما يرجى مالحظة أن أوقات وأماكن الفعاليات و الدورات عرضة للتغيري لذا ننصح مبتابعة املوقع للحصول على أحدث

املعلومات.

Winter enrichment Program (WeP)20112011

The 2011 Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) will be held January 15 - 31 with a special opening night reception Friday, January 14. This expansive collection of events, lectures and seminars - which goes beyond the traditional academic curriculum, is offered to students and the entire KAUST community.

New this year is a special WEP website with extensive details (descriptions, speaker biographies, locations, etc.) about each of the courses and events, as well as online registration. Visit http://wep.kaust.edu.sa for details.

The general format for the program is as follows: skilled and technical courses in the mornings; lectures, cultural offerings and events with a broad appeal in the afternoons and evenings; and cultural and recreational events on the weekends.

oPening night recePtion "traditionS of Saudi araBia"Friday, January 14 from 7:00 – 10:00 pm at Harbor Walk

The opening night reception will feature an evening of Saudi Arabian traditions for all ages at the Harbor Walk. Experience a cultural celebration highlighting the heritage of Saudi Arabia through demonstrations by authentic craftsmen, folk dance performers, live music, gifts, and cuisine. You won’t want to miss this festive display as we kick off the 2011 Winter Enrichment Program!

highLighted KeYnote SPeaKerS

abdulrahman al-Zamil “Preconceived ideas regarding the Saudi Workforce” Wednesday, January 26 from 6:30 - 8:00 pm Building 20, Auditorium

Abdulrahman Al-Zamil is Chairman of Al Zamil Holding Company and also chairman of the Board of Directors of Zamil Industrial Investment Company.

wep.kaust.edu.sa

Saleh ali al-turki “Poverty in the nation of Social Sponsorship?” Saturday, January 22 from 7:30 – 9:00 pm Building 20, Auditorium

Saleh Ali Al-Turki is the President and Chairman of the Board of several companies, including Nesma Holding Company, Nesma & Partners Contracting, and Namma Group of Companies for Trade, Industry and Maritime Services.

Lama abdulaziz al-Sulaiman “Women’s role in Business: a Personal Journey” Saturday, January 30 from 2:30 pm Building 20, Auditorium

Lama Abdulaziz Al-Sulaiman is the Vice Chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and will share insights from her personal experience.

Khalid Sulaiman al-rajhi “Saudi culture & its implications on Business” Monday, January 31 from 4:00 pm Building 20, Auditorium

Khalid Sulaiman Al-Rajhi is currently the Managing Director of Sulaiman Adulaziz Al-Rajhi & Sons Co. - Al-Watania Poultry. The Al-Watania Poultry project is the largest of its kind in the Middle East.

Visit http://wep.kaust.edu.sa for details on speakers and seminars. online registration is required and limited spaces are filled on a first come-first served basis. Spaces are fill-ing up quickly so register soon! For inquiries, please email [email protected].

Please note that the schedule is subject to change. check the website for the most up-to-date information and any last minute changes.

January 2011 The BeaconWep4

dateS: a Product of KSa Saturday, January 22 from 4:30 – 5:30 pm Building 9

This lecture will introduce the basic concepts regarding the origin of the date palm, the economic importance of date palm production and international trade, and date harvesting. This lecture serves as an informative session for those who are interested in knowing the basics of the date palm and its farming.

SPeaKer: Raju Manchakkal Thupran is a graduate in agriculture, with a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication and internships in organic farming. He has 18 years of post qualification experience, seven of which were in GCC and has worked on world famous projects like Palm Jumeirah, Burj Khalifa and Dubai Media City.

Saudi archaeoLogY at a gLance Monday, January 24 from 4:30 - 5:30 pm Building 9

The territory of Saudi Arabia has experienced a long and rich his-tory dating back to early human migrations. Due to its exceptional geographical situation, Saudi Arabia has always been a cross over for commercial exchanges and at all times caravans have travelled through the country. These population flows have enabled the development of flourishing civilizations. This seminar will provide to the audience a clear overview of the history of Saudi Arabia from the first migrations during the Paleolithic Age to the emergence of Islam.

SPeaKer: Dhaifallah Altalhi joined the Department of Antiquities in 1983 as an archaeologist and has participated in different survey programs around Saudi Arabia. He has also joined several different excavation programs such as: Almabayat, Tayma, Al-Hijr (Mada'in Saleh), and Aloqair. Mr Althalhi was also a member of the Saudi French excavations in Mada'in Saleh.

JourneY to mecca: in the footStePS of iBn Battuta Wednesday, January 26 at 5:00 pm (English), 8:30 pm (Arabic), and 9:45 pm (Arabic)

Thursday, January 27 at 1:00 pm (Arabic), 5:00 pm (Eng-lish), 8:30 pm (Arabic), and 9:45 pm (English) Discovery Cinema

Journey to Mecca is a 45 minute, award-winning dramatic docu-mentary narrated by Ben Kingsley. It tells the amazing story of Ibn Battuta, the greatest explorer of the old World, following his first pil-grimage between 1325 and 1326 from Tangier to Mecca. This visually stunning dramatization has been shown in IMAX theaters around the world and has received stellar reviews since its release in 2008.

Ibn Battuta is a young scholar on an epic and perilous journey, trave-ling alone from his home in Morocco to reach Mecca, some 3,000 miles to the east. He is besieged by countless obstacles as he makes his way across the North African desert to Mecca.

During his travels he is attacked by bandits, dehydrated by thirst, rescued by Bedouins, and forced to retrace his route by a war-locked Red Sea. Ibn Battuta finally joins the legendary Damascus Caravan with thousands of pilgrims bound for Mecca for the final leg of what would become his 5,000 mile, 18 month-long journey to Mecca. When he arrives in Mecca, he is a man transformed.

The dramatic feature ends with a close-up look at the contemporary Hajj, including insights and footage of the pilgrimage that draws three million Muslims from around the world to the region.

iSLam and univerSaL order: the BaLance BetWeen the conStant and evoLvingSunday, January 23 from 4:30 - 5:30 pm Building 9

Equilibrium, unity, and diversity are some of the most important characteristics of Islamic civilization. Since its begin-ning, this civilization has been more inclusive than exclusive, and wherever it spread, a new civilization evolved that accommodated the diversity of the local civilization and the constant: Islam. This lecture will explore the dynamic pro-cess between the variables and the constants that resulted in a prosperous culture.

SPeaKer: Dr. Sami M. Angawi established the Hajj Research Center in 1975 and in 1988 founded and became Managing Director of the Amar Center for Architectural Heritage, supervising all activities in areas of architectural designs, planning, conservation, restoration, and development of traditional architectural heritage. He is a leading activ-ist for preserving the historical sites in Makkah and Madinah.

KauSt architecture: from viSion to reaLitYMonday, January 24 from 1:30 – 2:30 pm Building 9

KAUST was the single largest project for design firm Hellmuth, obata + Kassabaum (HoK). HoK

voLcanoeS in Saudi araBia and iceLand: doeS a SLeePing eYJafJaLLaJöKuLL voLcano exiSt in Saudi araBia?Wednesday, January 26 from 4:30 – 5:30 pm Building 20, Auditorium

The volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull (Iceland) revealed how vulnerable our modern society can be to natural haz-ards. More than 100,000 flights were cancelled during the most active week in April 2010, causing massive travel chaos and a $1.7 billion loss to the airline industry alone. Could a similar eruption take place in Saudi Arabia with compara-ble consequences? There are many active volcanoes in Saudi Arabia and large areas in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula are covered by lava flows. This lecture will provide a general overview of volcanoes and recent volcanic activ-ity in both Saudi Arabia and Iceland. The similarities and differences in the volcanic activity of these two regions will be explained as well as the potential of an Eyjafjallajökull-type eruption in Saudi Arabia.

SPeaKer: Sigurjón Jónsson earned his doctoral degree in geophysics and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and holds master’s and bachelor degree in geophysics from the University of Iceland. After graduation from Stanford, Dr. Jónsson was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and before joining KAUST, was a senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

introduction to the art of iSLamic caLLigraPhY Saturday, January 29 from 4:00 - 7:00 pm Building 9

In this introductory workshop, you will be given an overview of the art of Islamic calligraphy as one of the most promi-nent forms of visual arts in the Islamic culture. Topics will include the history and development of Islamic calligraphy, its interactive role in the rise of Islamic civilization, and its role in the transmission and preservation of human knowledge over many centuries. The workshop will include a visual presentation illustrating the main features and elements of the various styles of calligraphy, along with many famous works spanning centuries of development. The workshop will also include a description of the special tools used by calligraphers, profiles of central figures in this art, and references to several printed and online resources that can be consulted for further learning and engagement in the art of calligraphy.

SPeaKer: Dr. Ammar Al-Nahwi a long-time enthusiast and hobbyist of Islamic calligraphy, will lead this workshop. Despite his formal education and career in mechanical engineering, Dr. Al-Nahwi maintains a passion for this art and uses various opportunities to speak about and advocate the preservation of this important element of Islamic and Arabic heritage. Dr. Al-Nahwi, holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and is currently serving as KAUST’s Vice President of Research and Development Management.

had experience designing other universities and research laboratories in the Kingdom and around the world but none at the pace or scale that was achieved at KAUST. You will be taken through some of the challenges faced, design feature considerations, lessons learned, and case study research that went into developing a world class university from a patch of desert on the Red Sea.

SPeaKer: Ron Keller began his involvement with KAUST in April of 2007 as a Senior Project Manager for HoK. He is a registered architect in the U.S. and is a LEED accredited professional in sustainable design. He joined the Economic Development team as the Manager of Marketing and Promotions for the Research Park in August of 2010.

January 2011www.thebeacon.kaust.edu.sa Wep 5

Centuries ago scientists worked independently; they made observations, calculated, theorized and documented their observations and theories in note-books. over the next several hundred years very little changed. But scientific discovery has undergone profound transformation over the last four decades – from a culture of science with minimal data to sci-ence that works with increasingly large amounts of data. This data is shared and enriched by collabora-tion among scientists from multiple disciplines. The cross-fertilization of ideas and expertise often leads to a better understanding of complex physical phe-nomena scientists are attempting to analyze today.

High performance computing is accelerat-ing discovery and innovation – where theory and experimentation were once the two pillars of sci-ence – simulation is now the third. It complements, informs, and when experiments prove too dangerous, expensive, or are otherwise prohibitive, computa-tional science and engineering research can replace experimentation. Taking it one step further, the third paradigm is the use of computers for, not only anal-ysis and simulation, but for discovery through data mining and pattern recognition.

Thanks to relatively inexpensive data storage sys-tems, broadband networks, and sensors that are continuously monitoring the earth from high up in space to deep under the sea; a virtual avalanche of

data, constantly growing in volume and diversity, is both a blessing and a curse. It holds the promise of significant breakthroughs in scientific discovery for years to come and yet, in order for it to be effectively tapped, it must be properly managed and efficiently manipulated.

Researchers now have the power to look at correla-tions in existing data and consider the relationships between data in multiple domains. The big challenge is how to analyze the enormous amount of data available within a practical time frame (even with a supercomputer).

Researchers in KAUST’s Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering (MCSE) Division mostly create theoretical techniques or software implementations that add capabilities to the com-putational ecosystem – they are enablers. The computational researchers in KAUST’s other two divi-sions complete the ecosystem as users with software applications. They run ensembles of large simulations or process large batches of data.

KAUST enablers include people like Dean of MCSE, Prof. David Keyes and Research Scientist Xiangliang Zhang. For the past two decades, Prof. Keyes’ research has responded to the growing gap between the com-plexity of the applications that scientists would like to run and the complexity of the architecture of high-performance computers. Application codes typically

have requirements that can be expressed as mathematical abstractions, such as “solve a linear system with this matrix” or “find the normal modes of this system”. Scientists who make these demands on the hardware should be spared the details that their matrix needs to be spread out over tens or hundreds of thousands of individual computer memories, connected to similar numbers of proces-sors at the ends of a complex network that routes information through the computer, and ultimately on and off of storage units and display peripherals. The Dean of MCSE, Prof. David Keyes has developed solution algorithms for the distributed-hierarchi-cal memory message-passing supercomputers that have dominated simulation for the past two decades, during which computational capabilities have been improved by a cumulative factor of about one mil-lion, at fixed cost.

Dr. Zhang’s work is motivated by data streaming applications, which are characterized by data that typically must be processed in real time, and can-not be stored in its entirety or revisited, as it is too voluminous. She employs statistical methods to look for patterns in such data, to detect events of inter-est. Such events could be scientific in nature, such as the analysis of observations from spectrometers, telescopes, sensors, etc., but the same tools apply to many domains outside of science, such as intrusion

detection in computer

networks, or the supply of electricity in response to the

t i m e - varying demands of millions of users and hundreds of suppliers.

According to Prof. Keyes, the software that he and Dr. Zhang develop allows them “to partner with a large variety of scientists and engineers – an inter-disciplinary richness that we and others in the MCSE Division treasure about our work at KAUST!”

Whether collaborating across divisions or across the KAUST Global Collaborative Research network, the one constant is the team of computational sci-entists within the KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory who provide the expertise to assist domain experts to optimize their software for Shaheen and sup-port projects from start to finish. Their reputation is quickly spreading worldwide as the popularity of their exhibit at the SC10 Supercomputing Conference in New orleans last November can attest. Not only were those watching demonstrations and lectures interested in possible faculty, staff, or student open-ings, but many were also considering collaborative projects on Shaheen.

The ShAheeN Supercomputer

ThIrd pArAdIgM @ KAUST

Seismic imaging estimates the earth’s rock proper-ties by deciphering seismic data recorded on the earth’s surface. For example, earthquake seismolo-gists tomographically decipher traveltimes from earthquakes to understand the geologic history of our planet, helioseismologists invert sunquake measure-ments to understand the internal physics of the sun, and exploration seismologists use controlled source seismic data to identify oil, gas, and mineral deposits. Without such technology, there would be more than an order-of-magnitude fewer natural resources avail-able for today’s advanced civilization.Recently, KAUST researchers in the earth science pro-gram have co-pioneered multisource seismic imaging to significantly expedite the inversion of seismic data. Instead of sequentially inverting one seismic record at a time, they encode and combine all seismic data

together and invert the combined data in one step. This is analogous to listening to simultaneous con-versations at a cocktail party, and quickly being able to decipher all conversations at the same time. Dr. Chaiwoot Boonyasiriwat, and Ph.D. students Wei Dai, Yunsong Huang, Xin Wang, and Ge Zhan, are lead-ing the KAUST efforts to further develop and broaden this technology with the help of KAUST Prof. Gerard Schuster and their Academic Excellence Alliance (AEA) partner Prof. Paul Stoffa at University of Texas at Austin. In particular, the KAUST and AEA research-ers have developed parallel modeling and inversion codes on Shaheen to validate and refine the multi-source inversion technologies. These codes have been successfully tested for 2D and 3D synthetic data, with current efforts aimed at inverting land data and marine data from the Red Sea. These research efforts would not be possible without the computational power of Shaheen.

Biology is generating massive complex data sets and computation is increasingly important to understand and extract useful information from them. Increased size and capability of high-end computer systems make it possible for instance, to quickly compare new molecular sequences against all known DNA and protein data so far generated.

The new field of metagenomics, in which genome sequence segments from an entire environmental sample are determined, has revolutionized our approach to studying ecol-ogy and population genetics. Recently, the 2010 KAUST Red Sea expedition was carried out. This generated in one experiment, in collaboration with the American University of Cairo, 12% of all current metagenomic data. The metagen-omic analysis of these seven million new

sequences would have taken over a year to run on a standard computer server. When Senior Research Scientist, Dr. Heikki Lehvaslaiho, and Research Scientist, Dr. Intikhab Alam in the Computational Bioscience Research Center needed to analyze these data, they turned to the power of Shaheen. It took just weeks to complete.

Dr. Lehvaslaiho and Dr. Alam were able to take advantage of work done at Virginia Tech (VT) on a special version of the well known Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) which is one of the standard tools for identifying regions of local similarity between biologi-cal sequences. The group at VT, together with others, has developed a "parallelized" version of the BLAST code called mpiBLAST that could run on BlueGene/P systems. At KAUST, they adapted this code to run efficiently on Shaheen and made a pipeline which allows mpiBLAST to automatically undertake many different tasks in the future.

SeISMOlOgY bIOSCIeNCe

النموذج الثالث يف جامعة امللك عبد اهلل للعلوم والتقنيةكانت النظرية و التجريب يعتربان الركنْين األساسيْين للعلم، مث أصبحت املحاكاة اآلن ركنًا ثالثًا حيث جند أن احلوسبة العالية األداء ُتسّرع

من عجلة االكتشاف و االبتكار. كما يقدم كل من شاهني »احلاسوب العمالق« وفريق خمترب احلوسبة الفائقة من باحثي احلوسبة و مديري النظم للباحثني و املتعاونني الفرصة لتشغيل عمليات املحاكاة اليت مل تكن حىت يف اخليال قبل عقدين من الزمن.

research6 January 2011 The Beacon

CHRIS KENDALL

ChIp4 Cores @ 850 Mhz

13.6 gf/s

COMpUTe CArd

1 Chip + 20 drAMS4gb ddr2

NOde CArd32 Compute Cards

0-1 IO Cards435 gf/s 128gb

rACK32 Node Cards13.9 Tf/s 4Tb

ShAheeN16 racks

222 Tf/s 64Tb

Shaheen, aptly named after the Arabic word for a Peregrine falcon <Arabic>, is a 16-rack IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer, consisting of 65,536 independent process-ing cores which has a peak performance of 222 Teraflops or 222 x 10^12 floating-point operations per second. It is the largest and most powerful supercomputer in the Middle East. When it was installed in June 2009, it was the 14th most powerful supercomputer in the world.

Hardware is only one component of the KAUST

Supercomputing Laboratory (KSL) that hosts Shaheen. Manager, Dr. Dinesh Kaushik, and his team consisting of a business manager, seven computational scientists, and five system administrators have an impressive combined record of experience in high performance computing prior to coming to KAUST. Some of the computational scientists were given about six months training on the BlueGene/P system in residence at IBM before moving to campus. The computational scientists provide one-on-one assistance to faculty to ensure that they use the most effective algo-rithms to exploit the full capabilities of Shaheen. The system administrators manage the system on a day-to-day basis to ensure its high availability and dependability.

SHAHEEN Supercomputer

lAb geAr

Magnetic reconnection (MR), the continuous breaking and rearrangement of magnetic field lines in a plasma (footnote: plasma is the fourth state of matter and in fact 99% of the visible universe is in the plasma state), is a fundamental process in physics and computer simulations play a key role in new discoveries in this field. MR is

somewhat ubiquitous in nature: it occurs, for example, during solar flares (or coronal mass ejections), in the earth's magnetotail, and in stellar jets. Classical theories predict reconnection rates slower than those observed in nature by as much as a few orders of magnitude.

Dr. Ravi Samtaney and colleagues from Lisbon, Colorado, and oxford are collaborating on the study of a recently dis-covered instability, which causes the formation of "plasmoids", i.e., clumping of the reconnection layer. Plasmoids are being invoked as one mechanism that increases the reconnection

rate. The reconnection process, even in two dimensions, requires immense computational resources because of strin-gent resolution requirements (one has to be able to resolve thin layers which may be a thousand to ten-thousand times smaller than the length of the physical domain). Here is where Shaheen is proving to be an invaluable resource.

Dr. Samtaney developed a parallel simulation code on Shaheen to solve the partial differential equations modeling the reconnection process. To date, he and his colleagues have consumed more than 10 million core hours, at times utilizing the entire machine running on more than 64 thousand cores. Without readily available supercomputing resources on cam-pus, such work would not have been possible. Results from this work generated some excitement at the recent US-Japan Workshop on magnetic reconnection. Dr. Samtaney is look-ing to extending the model to three dimensions and including more realistic physics, simulations of which will stress even future exascale supercomputers.

plASMA phYSICS

KAUST i s cur rent ly work ing with the Computational Modeling Technology Team at Saudi Aramco’s EXPEC Advanced Research Center to run their award winning reservoir modeling software, GigaPoWERS, which simulates the Kingdoms giant reservoirs in high resolution using billions of cells on Shaheen. The outcome of these high-fidelity simulations will provide a more accurate prediction of the reservoir life and enhance man-agement of reservoir operations.

Atmospheric physics and environmental mod-eling combine advanced numerical tools with station, satellite and reanalysis data to develop simulations. These help to predict the factors affecting the interactions between the oceans, land and the atmosphere to evaluate and pro-ject human and natural impacts on climate and environmental systems.

Dr. Georgiy Stenchikov, Professor of Environmental Science and Applied Mathematics and Computational Science, has been studying the effects of atmospheric-oceanic interaction for 30 years. At KAUST, he has focused on the climate of Saudi Arabia and Red Sea, which are uniquely governed by the interaction of local and global processes. For this reason, although his work relates to the processes in a relatively small region, Dr. Stenchikov and col-laborators at the U.S. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory conduct unique calculations of atmospheric circulation using a 25km grid over the entire Earth resolving both global and regional processes. Validation and analysis of the enormous data flow generated by these simulations are based on station data available from Saudi Arabia’s Presidency of Meteorology and the Environment, and satellite and reanalysis products available from the world’s best scientific centers. This work

requires an enormous amount of computer time and disc space to analyze.

Another project, in collaboration with the GCR partner, Prof. Zong-Liang Yang from the University of Texas at Austin, is related to sand storms in Saudi Arabia. Using a 1km resolu-tion grid necessitates even more computational power to run simulations. one of the many outcomes of this research is an enhanced understanding of the effects of dust storms in Saudi Arabia on human health, circulation patterns and climate in Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean, as well as better quantification of atmospheric and radiative forcing that drives the Red Sea circulation.

Dr. Stenchikov and his collaborators work with the most advanced climate models, validate them using station, satel-lite and reanalysis data and then push the limits of all 64,000 processors of Shaheen.

SIMUlATINg deSerT eNvIrONMeNTS

research 7January 2011www.thebeacon.kaust.edu.sa

January 2011 The BeaconCOMMUNITY8

KAUST CelebrATeS INAUgUrAl COMMeNCeMeNT CereMONY

Every month The Beacon team has the good for-tune to glimpse some of nature’s most interesting subjects that are often hidden to all but the eagle

eyes of KAUST’s roving photographers. Aryuna Mikhaylova, a community member from Russia, found this hive of traumatized wasps that had fallen from a palm tree during a late December storm. The inset photo gives you an idea of the location and scale of her

find. “KAUST is like a resort for many birds, insects, geckos” she told The Beacon and she implored the gardeners at KAUST to leave “more beautiful shady places” for these natural inhabitants. We enjoy receiving each and every one of your photographs (and wish we could publish them all). Please keep them coming! Email your photos to [email protected]

phOTO Of The MONTh

MY UNIverSITYDr. Iman Roquan is a physicist in the Materials

Science Program in the Physical Science and Engineering Division at KAUST. She studied the optical properties of gallium nitride (used for semi-conductors) for her Ph.D. in Scotland, following her undergraduate degree in Makkah. Gallium nitride is important for lasers, LEDs and display lighting and has a far-reaching role in areas including medicine and education. After several months working at Imperial College in London as part of Global Collaborative

Research, she joined the Electrical Engineering and Materials Science program at KAUST.

“Saudi Arabia is my country,” she explains, “and I want to do something for my country.” Already her classes are popular, but she would like to attract more female graduates to her subject; even in Europe she was one of very few women in the field. She is excited about the Women in Science and Engineering seminar that is part of the Winter Enrichment Program.

IMAN rOqUAN

In his home country, the Philippines, Ryan worked as a baker. He left home for the first time to come to KAUST where he uses the skills he learned tak-ing his hotel and management qualification to keep the fourth level of Building 16 immaculate. “I enjoy my job a lot’, he says, and enjoys preparing for the many VIPs hosted by KAUST, taking special care when he knows someone very important is coming. He was particularly taken with the graciousness of

His Excellency Minister Ali Ibrahim Al-Naimi when he visited.

Ryan speaks to his family a couple of times each month, and will see them when he returns at the end of his two-year contract. His work here enables him to help support his eight siblings back home and he is looking forward to being a baker there one day in the future.

rYAN JUSTINIANO

Photo by: Aryuna Mikhaylova

Born in Damascus, Syria, and raised in Al Khobar, Tariq was an undergraduate in Information Systems at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals when he first heard of the King’s dream for KAUST. He is proud to be amongst the first 100 students to be accepted and, although it was difficult waiting until the fall of 2010 to enter (he monitored construction on the website weekly), he says, “when you dream of something for three years, you grow with it”.

He feels privileged to be at KAUST and welcomes the opportunity to be a pioneer. “If you go to Harvard”, he suggests, “everything’s been done and here students can help build the university”. Tariq has plans to do just that. He is determined to help improve student life and accessibility on campus and would like to see greater integration between KAUST and other universities in the Kingdom. Like most of his colleagues, he’s willing to ‘roll up his sleeves’ and help make it happen.

TArIq MAlAS

Winter Enrichment Program (WEP)20112011

January 2011 The BeaconWEP Schedule

WEEK 1 Sat 15 Sun 16 Mon 17 Tue 18 Wed 19 Thurs 20 Fri 213 Hour Courses 09:00-12:00

Cornell University Entrepreneurship Certificate - daily from 9:00 - 16:30

09:30 - 10:00 Opening (Calvin/Rockwood) Improv Theatre A (Rowland) - daily from 9:00-12:00 WEP Family5K RUN9:00 - 12:00

Beach Day:9:00 - 16: 00boat race,kayak races,barbecue,volleyball tournament,beach soccer

10:00 - 11:30 Welcome Lecture (Norden) Advanced Improv Theatre (Orr) - daily from 9:00-12:00

Scientific Type Setting with LATEX(Saragiotis) 1/3



Intro to Physical Problem Solving(Newman) 1/3



Electron Density Models UsingComputational Chemistry

Biomedical Signals & Sensors(Kaniusas) 1/3



Solar Energy Conversion via WaterSplitting with Photocatalysts (Domen)

Sustainable Chemistry, Principles,Methods & Technologies (Lemaire)

Biological Economics and Decision Making(Chew/Ebstein) 1/2

Biological Economics and Decision Making(Chew/Ebstein) 2/2

Concept & Application of Modern Multi-Pulse Multi-Dimensional NMR(Emsley) 1/2

Concept & Application of Modern Multi-Pulse Multi-Dimensional NMR(Emsley) 2/2

Marine Life for Non Majors (Berumen/Furby) 1/3



11:00 - 13:00 Visualization Laboratory Open House Piano Class11:00-12:00(Malone)12:30 - 13:00 KAUST Museum Tour KAUST Museum Tour KAUST Museum Tour

13:30 - 14:30 The Craft of Scientific Writing andPublishing: How to Get Published in Nature and Other Top-RankedInternational Journals (Campbell/Csontos) 13:30 - 16:00

Life In Extreme Environments Seminar(Stingl/DasSarma/Antunes/McGenity)1/213:30 - 16:30

International Year of ChemistryCelebration:Lecture Series(Basset/Domen/Kadri/Lemaire)13:30 - 17:00

Women in Science & Engineering(Roqan/Merzaban/Zuber/Kadri/ Al-Kuraya/Al-Suhaibani/Caps/Aissa/Kashab) 13:30 - 17:30

Master Classof Cuisine12:00 - 14:00

Monitoring the Diversity & Role of Marine Microorganisms (Lebaron) 1/2

Monitoring the Diversity & Role of Marine Microorganisms (Lebaron) 2/2

15:00 - 16:00 Birds of the Middle East (Smith)1/2 (2 hrs )

Birds of the Middle East (Smith) 2/2 (2 hrs)

Tour of Jeddah(small fee)15:00 - 23:00

Public Speaking in Graduate SchoolSettings (Jolly) 1/3 (90 mins)

Life In Extreme Environments Seminar(DasSarma/McGenity) 2/2 15:00-17:00

Public Speaking in Graduate SchoolSettings (Jolly) 2/3 (90 mins)

Public Speaking in Graduate SchoolSettings (Jolly) 3/3 (90 mins )

Violin Class (Kuang) - daily from 15:00-16:00

Improv Theatre B (Al-Naffouri) - daily from 15:00-18:00

Improv Singing (Brody) - daily from 15:00-17:30

16:30 - 17:30 IsoIation & Characterization ofMarine Natural Products (Crews)1/3

IsoIation & Characterization of Marine Natural Products (Crews) 2/3

IsoIation & Characterization ofMarine Natural Products (Crews) 3/3

Beyond Left & Right: Harnessing thePower of the Whole Brain to Enhance Learning (Murray)

Refresh Your English Grammarwith Communicative Tasks(Sherris)

Intro to MATLAB (Kouider) 1/2 Intro to MATLAB (Kouider) 2/2 Numbers, Codes & Logic (Kouider)

Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee) Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee) Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee applies)

17:00-19:00 Staff Improv (Saisi)

International Year of ChemistryCelebration: Experiments

Piano From the Starting Line (Malone) Piano from the Starting Line (Malone) Music & the Elements (Swann) Piano From the Starting Line (Malone)

19:30 - 21:00 Still Finding Science in Finding Nemo(Berumen)

Bringing “Avatar’s” Faces to Life(Mark Sagar)

Size Matters (Jay Shafer) A Fact Based World View (Hans Rosling) Present-Day Mars: From Moonscapeto Desert to Tundra (Maria Zuber)

Basel & FriendsPerformance

The 2011 Winter Enrichment Program (WEP) will be held January 15 - 31 with a special opening night reception Friday, January 14. WEP is designed with the aim to have our intellectual horizons enlarged and our imaginations stretched. This expansive collection of events, lectures and seminars - which goes beyond the tra-ditional academic curriculum, is offered to students and the KAUST community.

This year’s program focuses on four areas: • Business and Entrepreneurship• Technology and Innovation• Personal and Professional Development• Culture and Art of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East

New this year is a special WEP website with extensive details (descriptions, speaker biographies, locations, etc.) about each of the courses and events, as well as online registration. Visit http://wep.kaust.edu.sa for details.

wep.kaust.edu.sa

January 2011 The BeaconWEP Schedule

WEEK 2 Sat 22 Sun 23 Mon 24 Tue 25 Wed 26 Thurs 27 Fri 283 Hour Courses 09:00-12:00

Ultimate Frisbee: Clinic 10:00 - 13:00

UltimateTournament8:00 - 15:00

Cornell University Entrepreneurship Certificate: daily from 09:00 - 16:30

SymposiumThe Impact of Applied and Computational Mathematics in the 21st Century(Hinch/Oliver/Hall/Goriely/Huppert/Ockendon)9:30 - 18:00

OCCAM Study Group in Mathematics for Industry from 9:00 - 17:30

Ground To The Sky: MultiscaleChallenges In Materials & Structures (Lubineau/Bourchak/Rey/Khan/Prudhomme) 1/2 9:00 - 16:00

Ground To The Sky: MultiscaleChallenges In Materials & Structures (Lubineau/Bourchak/Rey/Khan/Prudhomme) 2/2 9:00 - 16:00

Intro to Value Engineering (Asha) 1/2 Intro to Value Engineering (Asha) 2/2

Multiscale Hybrid High PerformanceApplication with Visualization (Douglas/Efendiev/Hansen) 1/3



Hands-on Tutorials on FEM with COMSOL Multiphysics (Cotterau/Prudhomme)

Advanced Geometrics in PatternFormation (Zappulla) 1/2

Advanced Geometrics in PatternFormation (Zappulla) 2/2

Intro to HPC I (Marchand) Intro to HPC 2 (Marchand) Intro to HPC 3 (Marchand) Intro to HPC 4 (Marchand)

Mathematical Modeling of Metamaterials Electromagnetics (Li) 1/3



Vis. 1: Scientific Data VisualizationUsing AVIZO (Knox/Srinivasan/Acevedo-Feliz)

Vis. 2: Scientific Data VisualizationUsing VISIT (Childs)

Vis. 3: Supporting Scientific & Collaborative Technology With DataNetworking Technologies (Wickham)

Vis. 4: Perception, Illusion & Simulation:Advanced Audio Systems for Immersive Media Experience (Otto/Seldess)

Vis. 5: Distributed ScientificVisualization Using SAGE &cgIX (Knox)

09:00 - 10:00 Excel-ling in Analyzing Your Data & Statistics (Kouider)

Steps to Successful RoommateRelationships (Moredock)

Practicing Writing About Science For A General Audience (Sherris) (90 min)

Refresh Your English Grammar withCommunicative Tasks (Sherris)

JeddahMuseum Tour10:00 - 22:00(small fee)

GolfTournament9:00 - 12:00

11:00 - 13:00 Visualization Laboratory Open House Musical Marathon 11:30

12:30 - 13:00 KAUST Museum Tour Music Workshop (samite) (60 min) KAUST Museum Tour KAUST Museum Tour Journey to Mecca Film13:0013:30 - 14:30 How to Write About Science For

a General Audience (Sherris)Beyond Left & Right: Harnessing the Power of the Whole Brain Enhance Learning (Murray)

History of KAUST Architecture (Keller) Drug Design and Discovery: Theroryand Experiments with Computational Protein-Protein Docking (Bajaj) 13:30 - 17:30

Drug Design and Discovery: Theroryand Experiments with Computational Protein-Protein Docking (Bajaj) 13:30 - 17:30

Intro to MATLAB (Kouider) 1/2 Intro to MATLAB (Kouider) 2/2 Science & Technology ofUltranano crystalline Diamond Films for Application to Multifunctional System (Auciello) 1/2

Science & Technology ofUltranano crystallineDiamond Films for Application to Multifunctional System (Auciello) 2/2

15:00 - 16:00 Plant Spirals Beauty: Do Plants Know Math? (Atela)

Dynamic Systems & Geometry in Phyllotaxis (Atela)

New Insight of Resistive Switching in MIS Nano-scale Devices (Pey)

Evolution of Integrated Circuits & Future of Semiconductors (Pey)

Women’sBadminton TournamentandMen’s SingleTournament18:30 - 20:00

Violin Class (Kuang)

16:00 - 17:00 Music Workshop (Swann) Disk Golf16:00 - 18:0016:30 - 17:30 Physics - The Birth of Quantum

Mechanics (Manchon) 1/2 Physics - The Birth of Quantum Mechanics (Manchon) 2/2

Ultrafast Spectroscopy PhotoelectronImaging (Sobhy)

Entrepreneurship Program: Roundtable(Jamal/Attar/Nassief/Bahjatt/Jamal/Binzagr/Koshak/Sine)16:30-18:30

Volcanoes In Saudi Arabia & Iceland: Does a Sleeping “Eyjafjallajökull Volcano” Existin Saudi Arabia? (Jónsson)

Dates: A Product of KSA (Thupran) Islam & Universal Order (Angawi) Saudi Archaelogy at a Glance (Al Talhi)

Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee) Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee applies

17:00 - 18:30 Journey to Mecca Film Journey to Mecca Film

17:30 - 19:00 WEP Research Poster Session

Preconceived Ideas Regarding Saudi Work Force(Abdulrahman Al Zamil) 18:30

Soccer TournamentBowling Tournament19:30 - 21:00 Poverty in the Nation of Social

Sponsorship (Saleh Al Turki)Viva La Robolution (Bruno Bonnell) Journey to the Soul of Africa Concert

(Samite)Behind the Scenes at Pixar (Rob Cook)

20:30 - 21:30 Journey to Mecca Film Journey to Mecca Film20:30 and 21:4521:45 - 22:45

Journey to Mecca Film

WEEK 3 Sat 29 Sun 30 Mon 313 Hour Courses 09:00-12:00

The Anthropogenic Water Cycle:

Solutions to Minimize Environmental

Impacts & Promote Reuse Options

(Croue/Keller/Leckie /Jekel/Reckhow/

Amy) 9:00 - 17:30

Cloud Computing:Concepts & Technologies(Sahu) 9:00 - 16:30

Harnessing Adaptive Traits from

Extrem ophiles to Increase Food

Security (Cheeseman) 9:00 - 14:30

The Art of Being a Scientist (Snieder/ Larner) 1/3

The Art of Being a Scietntist

(Snieder/ Larner) 2/3 The Art of Being a Scientist (Snieder/ Larner) 3/3

Seismic Inversion for Reservoir

Characterization (Sen) 1/2

Seismic Inversion for Reservoir

Characterization (Sen) 2/2

The Geopolitics of EnergyEfficiency (Bettiol) 1/2

The Geopolitics of Energy Efficiency (Bettiol) 2/2

11:30-13:00 Musical Marathon

12:30 - 13:00 KAUST Museum Tour KAUST Museum Tour

13:30 - 14:30 Steps to Successful RoommateRelationships (Moredock/Baker)

Women’s Role in Business (Lama Abdulaziz Alsuliman)

15:00 - 16:00 Open Access: Accelerating Scientific

Progress (Jerram) How to Write About Science for a General Audience (Sherris)

Saudi Culture & its Implications on

Business

(Khalid Sulaiman Alrajhi)

Surviving the Ph.D. Dissertation

(Moredock) 1/3


(Moredock) 2/3


(Moredock) 3/3

16:00 - 19:00 Introduction to the Art of Islamic

Calligraphy (Nahwi)

16:30 - 17:30 Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee)Refresh Your English Grammar with

Communicative Tasks (Sherris)

Sunset Boat Cruise (small fee)

Fine-Tune Your Resume (Jolly)

19:30 - 21:00 Research Poster Session Awards Poetry Reading (Nye/Ruurs/Kadoura) WEP Closing Ceremony

Visit http://wep.kaust.edu.sa for details and biographies on additional speakers and seminars. Online registration is required and limited spaces are filled on a first come-first served basis. Spaces are filling up quickly so register soon! For inquiries, please email [email protected].

Please note that the schedule is subject to change. Check the website for the most up-to-date information and any last minute changes: http://wep.kaust.edu.sa

Documents

January 2011