Khaled al-Fadhel ’01G ’05 PhD, a chemical engineering alumnus, has been named minister of oil and minister of water and electricity for Kuwait.
Al-Fadhel, who was appointed to the post in December 2018, had initially moved from academia to government in early 2018 to serve as undersecretary of commerce and industry. He is also now chairman of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC)
After completing his thesis at Lehigh under Mayuresh Kothare, the R. L. McCann Professor and Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, al-Fadhel joined Kuwait University as a faculty member in the College of Engineering and Petroleum. He served in numerous roles at the university, including vice dean of engineering for student affairs as well as director of advising and guidance.
“Khaled’s career trajectory has been quite exceptional,” says Kothare. “From the beginning, he distinguished himself as a doctoral student, earning our department's Leonard A. Wenzel Award for his exemplary PhD qualifying exam performance. His enthusiasm was recognized by students, and he received a Lehigh University Teaching Assistant Award based on their nominations. Now he has great influence as a decision-maker within OPEC and the global crude oil market.”
Al-Fadhel's PhD dissertation was focused on mathematical modeling of the performance of microfluidic chemical reactors and separators.
