Anas Alfaris was President of the Saudi National Labs and National Science Agency, namely King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST). Prior to that, he was VP for Research Institutes and founded the Joint Centers of Excellence Program (JCEP). He established the Center for Complex Engineering Systems (CCES) at KACST and MIT, as well as the Decision Support Center (DSC) of KACST and Boeing. He was also Director of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Affiliate Center and a Stewardship Board member for the Middle East and North Africa with the World Economic Forum.
He is a member of the board of trustees at the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, a board member of the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity. He was the chairman of the Science20 (S20), the Governing Board Member representing the MENA region in the Global Research Council, the King Salman Science Oasis, and Chairman for the King’s Prize for Honoring the Inventors and Talented. He was also a board member of the Saudi Space Agency, Military Industries Corporation, General Commission of Survey, National Industrial Development and Logistics Program (NIDLP).
Alfaris has also been responsible for the formulation of the National Saudi Research and Development strategies including the National Transformation Program (NTP) R&D agenda and later led the Research Development and Innovation and the Industry 4.0 Initiatives as part of NIDLP.
Alfaris received an MSc degree from the Center of Computational Engineering and a Ph.D. in Design Computation both from MIT. He is currently at MIT affiliated with the Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS) and worked as a Research Scientist in the Engineering Systems Division (ESD). He has also been part of several multidisciplinary research teams at MIT including the Smart Cities Group at Media Lab, and the Strategic Engineering Group at ESD.
Alfaris’ research experience includes AI, data analytics, Multi-Disciplinary Analysis, and Optimization as well as Decision Support Systems. His current work focuses on the development of Integrated Simulations for the planning of Smart Cities and large-scale complex urban and Infrastructure systems.