Dr. Zehor Belkhatir is currently a faculty member (Lecturer in control engineering) at the University of Leicester (UoL), Leicester, United Kingdom. Dr. Belkhatir pursued her education in Algeria until she received her MEng and M.Sc. degrees from “École Nationale Polytechnique” of Algiers in Automatics and Control Systems Engineering. Then, she carried on her doctoral studies at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering.

She then pursued her postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA. Dr. Belkhatir’s research interests encompass work across the fields of applied mathematics, control systems theory, and data analysis. A common thread in her research is in understanding experimentally constrained complex systems, with an emphasis on systems belonging to the biomedical field with severe constraints on information collection from controlled experiments and invasive sensors. As an example, she investigated the question of how brain-collected physiological and behavioral data using functional magnetic resonance imaging modality can be mathematically described in the framework of systems’ modeling and identification. Her research work was published in peer-reviewed journal/conference papers and book chapters.

Aside from her research, Dr. Belkhatir is extremely committed to mentoring and supervising students towards the completion of their projects. As part of her dedication to helping students, and building bridges between Algeria and academic institutions outside of Algeria she became a member of the Algerian American Foundation for Culture, Education, Science and Technology (AAF-CEST) and a member of the Algerian American Scientists Association (AASA). She is very active in both organizations as she has contributed effectively to the AAF Summer University program and the AASA science days. She has also participated in the Covid-19 fundraising that was aimed to help with PCR testing in Algeria. If elected to the AAF-CEST board Dr. Belkhatir will continue to help AAF-CEST in its mission and will be dedicated to ensuring projects undertaken by AAF-CEST are taken to completion.