Hosted by: Peter Wanderer

Set on the Saudi Arabian shores of the Red Sea, KAUST is an international, graduate research institution with research thrusts in energy, environment, food, and water and supporting initiatives to advance data-driven modeling, simulation, analytics, software, and hardware. KAUST was founded in 2009 in the spirit of the Bayt al Hikmah, the "House of Wisdom" where 12 centuries ago, scholars made great contributions in developing foundations for modern mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine. KAUST has been endowed with world-class facilities and has recruited distinguished research faculty, including the university's current president Jean-Lou Chameau, former president of Caltech, who accepted this role during the growing institution's fifth year of academic operations. During this BSA Distinguished Lecture, Keyes will describe the motivation, strategies, and progress toward the ambitious goal of building a world-class research university "from the sand up."