Fadel Adib wins inaugural Great Arab Minds award for engineering and technology
Community Jameel congratulates Fadel Adib, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology associate professor and former principal investigator at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) and the MIT Jameel Clinic, has won the inaugural Great Arab Minds award for engineering and technology for his research and inventions that "have significantly expanded the possibilities of wireless sensing technology".
HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, who founded the Great Arab Minds initiative, congratulated Fadel, saying: "His significant contributions include advancements in wireless sensing, particularly in wireless communication and the detection of objects and vibrations behind walls and under rubble. Best of luck to Professor Fadil Adib!"
Born in Tripoli, Lebanon, Fadel – who is 34 years old – graduated from the American University of Beirut with a bachelor's degree of engineering in computer and communications in 2011, and received a master's (2013) and doctorate (2016) in computer science from MIT.
His research has led to several start-ups. He is currently chief executive and co-founder of Cartesian Systems, and his doctoral research in 2016 contributed to the launch Emerald Innovations (co-founded by MIT Jameel Clinic principal investigator Professor Dina Katabi), whose devices are used for remote health monitoring of thousands of patients.
As a J-WAFS principal investigator, Fadel developed wireless technology for detecting contaminants in food and water, with the potential to keep people safe for harmful bacteria.
In 2015, he gave a demonstration to President Barack Obama in the White House of a wireless device that uses Wi-Fi signals to track an individual’s movements.
Among the current projects, his Signal Kinetics group is working on are battery-free underwater cameras that could explore uncharted regions of the oceans, tracking pollution and the effects of climate change.
