Khalid Al-Ali, PhD.

Carnegie Mellon Innovations Lab
Co-founder and Director

Biography

Dr. Khalid M. Al-Ali is a Senior Fellow and Director of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University’s west coast campus.  He is also the President and CEO of Senseta, a robotic sentry and patrol platform provider for the security industry.  At both NASA Ames Research Center and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL), he has been the principal investigator, project lead, and senior scientist on key projects involving advanced control systems, intelligent avionics, novel power systems, planetary rovers and robots, spacecraft, and autonomous exploratory vehicles for Lunar, Martian, and Antarctic missions.  He also serves as a member and principal test pilot for unmanned aerial vehicles for NASA Ames’ Intelligent Avionics program.  He founded the Carnegie Mellon Innovation Laboratory (CMIL) and directs its activities, where he is leading efforts to create compact, highly capable mobile autonomous vehicles covering ground, air and space operations.  Some of these platforms are already used by NASA Ames and NASA JPL as research test beds for NASA-relevant technologies and educational tools to excite students about robotics, science, and engineering. 

 Dr. Al-Ali was in charge of the Qatar Foundation’s Qatar Science and Technology Park Project (QSTP), a 120-hectare model Science Park located in Education City that promises to be the fertile breeding ground for state-of-the-art technological innovations, research and scientific breakthroughs.  The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development is a private, non-profit chartered organization founded by the ruler of Qatar in 1995.  It aims to develop and utilize human potential through a network of centers and the unique and groundbreaking Education City, with branch campuses of some of the world's leading universities.  The Education City is a totally integrated educational environment, occupying so far a total of 1000 hectares of land, 800,000 m2 of which are expected to be built up (planned future expansion is already in place).  Examples of institutes who have partnered with Qatar Foundation and established branch campuses are Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M, Georgetown, and Virginia Commonwealth Universities (www.qf.edu.qa).  Dr. Al-Ali was also the advisor to the Board of Directors and reported to both the ruler of Qatar and his consort.  The board was composed of various government ministers including the ministers of energy, finance, and health.  He was a leading member of committees responsible for brining several universities to the Education City.

 Dr. Al-Ali specializes in providing strategic vision and implementation strategies for senior executive, ministerial and steering committees.  He served as a founding member of both the Qatar National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategy Committee and the Qatar National ICT implementation Committee reporting directly to Qatar’s ruler, which sparked a multi-billion dollar process now lead by the Supreme Council of ICT to revolutionize the use of ICT in all sectors of the country.  He was a keynote speaker in a variety of international events and symposia.  He also represented Qatar in multiple visits, including a visit to the Far East with the Qatari royal delegation.

 Dr. Al-Ali has been involved with a multitude of scientific and research endeavors with General Electric Medical Systems, and both University of Colorado at Boulder, and University of California at Berkeley in the U.S.A.  He has been on numerous global teams that resolved a multitude of issues ranging from scientific, technical, project implementation and strategic.  His work has resulted in the creation of innovations that have given GE an unfair market advantage (especially in mammography and pediatrics), and methodologies that have evolved to become best-practice X-Ray dosage equipments of today.  While a scientist at the Universities of Colorado and California, he has worked extensively and lead efforts in robotics, controls, acoustics for various multi-media systems, space shuttle payload systems, and medical systems.  Dr. Al-Ali is the principal inventor of a U.S. and worldwide-patented technology involving advanced control systems for nonlinear acoustic devices.

 Dr. Al-Ali holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.