Dr Wail A Mousa

Dr Wail Mousa credits his academic success and successful career journey to the University of Leeds. In 2006, he successfully completed his Electronic and Electrical Engineering PhD under the supervision of Dr Des McLernon. Wail was the first Saudi postgraduate researcher to be sponsored for a PhD by the Schlumberger Dhahran Carbonate Research, located in Dhahran Techno-Valley.

Wail said: “I chose the University of Leeds as it was recognised the top Schools globally and in the UK for Electronic and Electrical Engineering, and more specifically for postgraduate research within my field of interest.”

Inspired by academic leadership

Inspiring academic leaders and alumni from the University of Leeds further influenced Wail’s decision to study for a PhD at the University.

He said: “Many of my outstanding professors were alumni of UK universities. The first ever Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE) at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) was also an alum of the University of Leeds.”

Wail’s academic accolades

Wail explained his experiences in academia resulted in acceptance in prestigious schools specialising in executive education, such as Babson College, Stern School of Business (NYU) and Harvard University. He said:

My academic experience in the University of Leeds was a catalyst and a pivotal turning point in my career journey, which made me strive for continuing excellence and academic pursuits.

“Transferring my robust academic bench-strength into practical business pursuits enabled me to be awarded as the founding Dean of the KFUPM’s Entrepreneurship Institute (EI) in 2016. To date it has created over 20 successful startups resulting in more than 100 jobs being created with over 25MM SAR in total revenue.

“I established many programs and initiatives to spread the culture of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking among young people and students in KFUPM and beyond. This success was recognized nationally in 2017 when KFUPM was awarded Best University in Saudi Arabia for supporting entrepreneurs and SMEs from the Saudi General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (Monshaat).”

Beyond Leeds

After being awarded a PhD, Dr Wail Mousa worked as a Research Scientist at Schlumberger Dhahran Carbonate Research, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, from 2006 to 2009. He then joined the KFUPM’s EE Department as an Assistant Professor and later became an Associate Professor. 

Wail’s research interests include digital signal processing and its application in geophysics, with particular emphasis on seismic data processing. During this time, he taught many signal processing courses in EE at KFUPM. At the same time, he introduced new courses in the EE department that mainly covered the signal processing aspects of seismic data processing and interpretation of seismic images. His collective academic success and professional accolades also include:

• Two BSc degrees – in Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Science – and a Masters in Electrical Engineering at KFUPM
• 50 publications, conference proceedings and scientific reports
• Six granted patents with United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
• Two published textbooks with Cambridge University Press (2020) and Wiley (2017)
• A book with Morgan & Claypool (2011)

Scaling up entrepreneurship programmes

Dr Wail Mousa is truly an entrepreneur at heart. He always been committed to paying innovation and entrepreneurship forward to future generations through mentorship and empowerment. This has resulted in a major contribution as Chair, World Petroleum Council, Youth Committee.

One of Wail’s filed patents was at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4-5 of commercialization by a startup called CoreEcho. The technology is an ultrasound-based process utilized to study rock core properties based on exploradtion seismic acquisition techniques.

Founded in 2014,CoreEcho won many Saudi Business Plan competitions. It also won first place in the 6th Student Annual Conference, Ministry of Higher Education, Saudi Arabia, in 2015. It also won a proof-of-concept fund from Dhahran Techno-Valley Company of around SAR 606.5K.

As a result of this success, Wail is working on scaling-up the entrepreneurship programs at EI, to be recognised as a centre of excellence alongside well-known university-based programs around the world.

Wail is a sought-after presenter and regularly contributes to judging panels, forums and summits at national and international level. It is evident that Wail is making an impact at a global level through his journey of accelerating academic prowess into business success.

An award-winning career

Dr Wail Mousa has received many awards, including a letter of distinction from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Schlumberger in 2008 for his technical contributions to the company and appeared in the Schlumberger Company Magazine January 2009 issue in an article entitled He has a dream…and Saudi research scientist Wail Mousa isn’t just sleeping on it.

Wail also appeared in Arab News December 2019 edition of Saudi Arabia Who’s Who. He also received the Award of Excellence of Serving the Department of Electrical Engineering at KFUPM in 2008. In 2011, he received a letter of appreciation from the HE KFUPM Rector due to a published paper in the IEEE Transactions on Education, sharing KFUPM’s experience in offering a multi-disciplinary course on Seismic Signal Processing.

More recently, in 2021, he was named among the top 3 finalists being acknowledged for the prestigious Saudi Arab British Council Study UK Alumni Awards. The finalists were selected from 1,300 applicants from around the world, for their outstanding achievements as business professionals, entrepreneurs and community leaders.

More about Wail

Wail held the post of Director of Business Development at KFUPM in 2009, where he worked with his colleagues in the university to develop KFUPM’s endowment and its branding.

He then went on to take up a diverse range of highly respected posts at the Ministry of Education and prestigious institutions in Saudi Arabia, including the Academic Leadership Centre. At Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) he worked as a consultant to the Vice-Rector for Business and Innovation, where he helped establish UQU endowments.

He also helped in writing the UQU Techno-Valley Company proposal and setup its strategy, restructuring objectives and work distribution of the Local and International Collaboration Office. 

After returning to KFUPM, Wail served as the Director, Centre for Business Incubators, KFUPM and became the first ever Assistant Dean, KFUPM’s EI.

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