Texas A&M at Qatar and QEERI invigorate Qatar’s professional community through continuing education
Published Nov 24, 2014Texas A&M at Qatar hosted a group of Qatari technicians who works for Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, QEERI, for two continuing education courses 26 October through 6 November at its Engineering Building on the Education City campus.
"Seven Qatari technicians joined the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute recently,” said Dr. Klaus-Hermann Dahman, chief scientist of the Material Sciences and Engineering Group in QEERI. “We provided an internal training program at QEERI followed with a focused course on material science at Qatar University and material science characterization at Texas A&M University at Qatar, which was well organized and praised by our trainees. It was a vital element in their training program. This program will be finalized by a six-month program at the National Institute of Material Sciences (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan.
“Our technicians are enthusiastic and eager to go to NIMS and they are fully aware that they are not only representing Qatar Foundation but also Qatar. Upon their return they will manage very specialized state-of-the-art equipment in new QF R&D facilities to tackle Qatar's Grand Challenges within QEERI, in collaboration with Texas A&M at Qatar, Qatar University as well as our local industrial strategic partners."
The first course, Electronic Circuits Simulation and Prototyping, was conducted by Wesam Mansour, Dr. Sertac Bayhan, Dr. Ziyad Shafik and Dr. Shady Khalil. This training covered the National Instruments design and test platform software, including Multisim, Ultiboard and LabView, in addition to Eagle PCB software.
“Participants were trained first on general laboratory and electrical safety then they started with the National Instruments Multisim software training where they learned the software environment and how to build an electronic circuit schematic, simulate the circuit and test it,” said Mansour, technical lab coordinator and course instructor. “They were also introduced to the NI LabVIEW and explored the LabVIEW environment, dataflow programming and common LabVIEW architectures in a hands-on format. They also learned to develop data acquisition, instrument control, data-logging and measurement analysis applications. They were able to create applications using basic design templates and architectures to acquire, process, display and store real-world data.”
The second course, Introduction to Materials Characterization Techniques, was conducted by Dr. Wubulikasimu Yiming, postdoctoral research associate. In this course, participants were trained on general laboratory and radiation safety and the application of the material characterization tools, and given basic hands-on experience on all equipment including standard operating procedures and data analyses software. Participants were also familiarized with the capabilities of the specific equipment models in the Central Materials Facility and developed an understanding of the hazards associated with each piece of equipment.
Texas A&M at Qatar is committed to being an essential partner in the continued development and training of professionals working in local industry. By providing certification courses, training opportunities and tailored technical programs to community professionals and industry collaborators, the campus invigorates Qatar’s professional community by providing expertise available nowhere else.
“This transfer of knowledge from world-class faculty and state-of-the art facilities directly supports the needs of industry professionals in Qatar and the wider region by promoting continuing growth and development and applying novel techniques and cutting-edge technology,” Yiming said.
“Knowledge and skills refined in Texas A&M at Qatar’s continuing education classes can be immediately applied on the job. “Characterization techniques such as scanning electron microcopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray computed tomography are indispensable tools in today’s materials researches. Being exposed to these characterization techniques would be advantageous for any materials researcher in order to better utilize these techniques in their research. Participants were very interested in these techniques. Some of the techniques they have not used before, so they were excited to do hands-on experiments with these techniques. Now that they have completed the course, I believe the participants now have a good understanding of how these techniques work, how to carry out analysis and what information they can get.”
For information contact Continuing Education Services: continuingeducation@qatar.tamu.edu; +974.4423.0079.