Prof Hicham Idriss

Biography

Hicham Idriss is a Fellow at SABIC Corporate Research & Development (CRD) at KAUST, Saudi Arabia and Professor (Hon.), Department of Chemistry, University College London, UK.

He received his undergraduate (BSc) and postgraduate (MSc, PhD and Habilitation (Dr. Science)) education from the University of Strasbourg (France). 

Prior to joining SABIC in 2011, he was Aberdeen Energy Futures Chair and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon University (UK). 

Prior to joining Aberdeen University, he was Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, and Head of the Structural and Computational Department (formerly Physical Chemistry Department) at the Department of Chemistry, the University of Auckland, New Zealand (2002 to 2008).  He was also the founder and coordinator of the Bachelor of Technology-Materials, at the University of Auckland from 1996 to 2008.  During his stay in Auckland he spent two sabbatical periods in Germany: in 2000 at the Fritz-Haber Institute der Max Plank - Physical Chemistry Department (Gerald Ertl group) and in 2007 at the Physical Chemistry Division of the Ruhr Universität Bochum (RUB) (Christof Wöll group).

His main research work is on the surface reactions of metal oxides both at the experimental and computational levels and his main expertise is in the metal/metal oxide interface effect on catalytic reactions.  In the last fifteen years or so, he has been focusing his research on hydrogen production from renewables both by thermal and photo-catalytic methods.