Hassan A Khawaja

Hassan A Khawaja is an Associate Professor at the University of Tromsø (UiT), Norway. He is a member of the process and gas team at the Department of Engineering and Safety and the leader of the research group ‘IR imaging, spectroscopy and numerical modelling’. He is also the Vice President (Scandinavia) of the International Society of Multiphysics. He is conference coordinator for annually organised Multiphysics Conference and Editorial Manager for the International Journal of Multiphysics. He completed PhD in CFD-DEM (Computational Fluid Dynamics – Discrete Element Modelling) simulations of two-phase flow in fluidised beds from the University of Cambridge in 2013. He is an accomplished young researcher who has been recognised at an early age and has been awarded distinguished prizes such as the Multiphysics Student Prize in 2010 and the W F Reddaway Prize in 2011. He was the post-doc researcher on ‘Multiphysics Investigation of CFRP Structures Subjected to Shock Wave’ sponsored by Norwegian Research Council (NFR) under PETROMAKS programme. He was also a research fellow at the University of Salford, UK on EU VISIONAIRE programme. He was granted a pilot research grant on an industry-linked project from Nordland County under the VRI (Programme for Regional R&D and Innovation). He is Chief Technical Officer and the founding member of Windtech start-up. He is an actively publishing journal papers, presenting at international conferences, securing research funding and encouraging innovative research. He completed formal training in ‘Pedagogical Competence for Higher Education’ in 2015 and since then performing his duties as a lecturer and supervisor for Bachelors, Masters and PhD students.

In his opinion, listening is highly important in teaching/lecturing. Close listening to his students allows him to establish a ‘closed feedback loop’, hence improving the learning experience for the students and vice versa. Therefore, Hassan always encourage his students to speak freely during his lectures/supervision sessions. Not only that he promotes students to ask questions or raise concerns or even make relevant comments. In addition, he believes in the ‘open door policy’, means students are welcome to come by his office and express their opinions/concerns without being judged. In his opinion, ‘good listening skills’ are one of the essential elements for being a good teacher. Not only in teaching, he strongly believes that listening is the key for being a good leader, a successful coordinator, a good friend, and a respectable person.