The Munib and Angela Masri Institute of Energy and Natural Resources at AUB hosted a seminar titled "Rethinking Atmospheric Water Harvesting: Leveraging Soft Matter and Transport Phenomena for Sustainable Water and Energy" by Professor Bachir El Fil on Thursday November 13 2025 at 12:30 pm Beirut time. The talk will be followed by a Q & A.
Bachir El Fil is an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), where he leads the Energy Innovation Lab. He combines expertise in thermal sciences, soft matter, and sorption phenomena to address challenges at the intersection of water and energy sustainability. His research focuses on developing next-generation hygroscopic materials—including hydrogel–salt composites and solid sorbents—for atmospheric water harvesting, thermochemical energy storage, and hydrogel-enabled thermal management for data centers.
Bachir earned his PhD in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, then worked as a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he led Professor Evelyn Wang’s group while she served as director of the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E). He completed his MEng and BEng degrees in mechanical engineering at the American University of Beirut (AUB).
His recognitions include being named a Rising Star in Mechanical Engineering (2024), recipient of the Sigma Xi Best PhD Thesis Award (2023), and a Rising Star in Interfacial Phenomena (2022). He also serves on the advisory editorial board of Device, a Cell Press journal.
Click here to view the abstract.
Click here to watch the talk.