Dr. Noora Fetais is an academic faculty at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Qatar University. Her expertise is in Visualization for Cybersecurity, and Blockchain. Dr. Fetais holds a PhD from the University of Sussex (UK). She is a member of the first batch of Qatar Leadership Center and holds an Executive Master Degree in Leadership from Georgetown University (US). She has been holding various professional and volunteered positions including: Vice-Chair of IEEE-Qatar Section, Qatar Ambassador of Women in Data Science (WiDS) at Stanford University, among others. Dr. Fetais is the first and only woman to chair the Faculty Senate of Qatar University (2016) and to be the Director of KINDI Center for Computing Research at Qatar University (2017-2020). She is a board member of Qatar-UK Alumni Networking, a member of Qatar Internet Exchange Points Steering Committee, and a member of the Board of Advisors for Qatar Academy Doha as part of the Qatar Foundation (QF) for Education, Science and Community Development. Dr. Fetais is representing Qatar University at ITU-UN and Qatar IXP.
Dr. Noora Fetais has been working at Qatar University (QU) in different positions. As a faculty member, she was a member of the planning, development, and assessment of undergraduate and graduate academic programs at the college and the department. As a Faculty Senate President, she reported directly to the president and coordinated with the Vice President for Academic Affairs in matters related to new programs initiation, faulty retention and contract renewal among other responsibilities. She led groups in reviewing and assessing policies and regulations affecting faculty and students, and was involved in building the university's industrial partnerships. As a director of a research center, she has overseen the relationship between graduate studies and research centers in integrating academic programs with research priorities. She, besides leading efforts to recruit new talented faculty members at KINDI center, has joined the college Faculty Planning, Recruitment, and Retention Committee since 2016. She has developed the center strategic plan 2018-2022, and has prepared and monitored its financial budgets. She is leading QU academic membership for ITU and has chaired an IEEE-sponsored conference, NATO-supported workshop, and local events since 2017. She has forged strong academic and industrial collaboration on behalf of Qatar University with national and multinational universities and companies resulting in signing agreements with Thales for Cybersecurity Chair and for CyberRange platform. Not only has she led the ISO accreditation of KINDI center, but she has also been a member at both college and department accreditation committees (resulting in renewing accreditation in 2017). She has acted as a focal point for national and international accrediting agencies.
Dr. Noora Fetais is leading many national and international research teams funded (more than 15,000,000 QR) in the field of her specialization. She won a NATO-SPS grant to support CyberWomen Workshop in Qatar for NATO and partner countries. She is the founder of the Qatar Women in Cyber Security Middle East (WiCSME) Affiliate group. She is leading and managing several cybersecurity teams at QU and abroad, to enable them to: conduct different projects that aid in Qatar's development; establish national and international collaboration and partnerships; develop a cyber-smart society; encourage cyber innovation and commercialization; provide services and consultation to public and private sectors; assist in building the national capacity in cybersecurity. While working on these funded projects, she has supervised many graduate and undergraduate students.
Dr. Noora Fetais has participated as a distinguished speaker, presenter and moderator in numerous regional and international conferences and has published several research papers. She has also participated in organizing and chairing several conferences, committees, sessions and panels at different conferences and workshops at the state level and participated in judging awards to some of these conferences and competitions. At the national level, Dr. Fetais has been invited as a speaker at the Qatar Fourth/Fifth Information Security Conference for Financial Sector 2017 and 2018, the Women & Diversity Talks 2019, the Fifth Doha Islamic Finance Conference, and chaired the "Challenges for cyber-security in Qatar", a session of the "Elevator Pitch: Proposal Ideas" at the "A Roadmap of Research in Cyber-security: An interdisciplinary perspective" workshop in 2015.. At the regional level, she has been invited by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) as a distinguished speaker at the “Conference on Women Leaders in Science, Technology and Engineering” in 2017. Moreover, at the international level, Dr. Fetais has been selected by the British Government as a future cybersecurity leader, inviting her to join the “UK-GCC Women in Cyber Fellowship program” since 2019. She was invited to moderate the session “To Secure: Towards a Resilient, Secure Environment & Community” during the Women in Cybersecurity Middle East (WiCSME) Virtual Conference 2020. She was invited in 2017 to present at the “Science Collaboration Symposium on Cyber Security” held at the University of Manchester and to chair a session on the "Smart Grid Protection" at that Symposium. Moreover, she was invited in 2019 as a speaker at “Qatar Day” in London. She chaired a session of the "IR, Data and knowledge management" at the IEEE/AICCSA'14 in 2014. Dr. Fetais organized three editions of the Cyber Week from 2017 to 2019. She also organized the Catch-the-Flag (CTF) Competition during the Cyber Week 2019, and CTF "شيل البيرق" during the national celebration at Darb-Alsai in 2019.
Dr. Noora Fetais has been recognized by IEEE (US) for her efforts, and won the Qatar University Visualization Challenge Award of the Interactive category. She was selected for the Study UK Regional Alumni Awards in 2018 as one of three finalists in MENA region for the Professional Achievement Award category, one of nine finalists in the MENA region for all categories, and one of 63 regional level finalists in the Study UK Regional Alumni Awards 2018. Dr. Fetais was awarded the British scholarship (Chevening), and is a senior member of IEEE, senior member of ACM, and a member of other different international professional associations such as INSTICC, ASEE, among others.