Dr. Nissrine El Hassan graduated in 2004 with a Master’s degree in Catalysis Applied to Conversion of Hydrocarbons from Sorbonne University, France in collaboration with the French Institute of Petroleum (IFP). She received her PhD in Chemical Process Engineering from Sorbonne University in 2008. Dr. El Hassans PhD related works included: Methane activation by NO2 on cobalt based catalysts dispersed on mesoporous silica type SBA-15, a thesis funded by the French ministry of research and aiming to reduce NOx emissions from stationary sources.

During her PhD, Dr. El Hassan was the PhD candidates representative in the Doctoral School of Chemical Engineering (Sorbonne University) from 2005-2007 and was elected PhD candidates representative in Sorbonne University, France from 2005-2007. After her PhD, she joined the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA, France) for a post-doc, research engineer position in the framework of the New Sodium Fast Nuclear Reactor Project, EUROTRANS European project. In her Post-doc, she worked on the Study of corrosion mechanism of T91 (Fe-9Cr) steel in Pb-Bi alloy containing low oxygen concentration.

Dr. El Hassan joined the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Balamand on 2009 where she worked with the chairperson, Dr. Henri El Zakhem, on the design of the BS and MS chemical engineering curricula, courses and education labs. In addition, she built from scratch a pioneer catalysis research lab Lebanon for catalysts preparation, characterisations and gas phase catalytic testing. From 2015-2018, Dr. El Hassan worked on the Erasmus plus Capacity building project entitled: Gas and Oil Processing a European Lebanese Cooperation (GOPELC). This project, with a total budget of 563,656 €, was conducted in partnership with higher education institutions from Europe: Universitatea Petrol Si Gaze Ploiesti (Romania), Kungliga Tekniska Hoegskolan (Sweden), Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne (France), and Universities from Lebanon.

In the activities of this project, MS of Chemical Engineering was updated, professors assisted to workshops and several students did their Master internships in Oil and Gas companies and Universities in Europe. From 2016-2019, Dr. El Hassan worked on a multidisciplinary research project for valorisation of municipal solid waste into energy (SOL-CARE, Solar Catalytic Reforming: a hybrid process to transform solid waste into energy), a project funded by the EranetMed-European Commissions Seventh Framework Programme (EU FP7). The consortium was formed by Sorbonne University and CNRS (France), University Of Balamand, Lebanese University, industrial group INDEVCO (Lebanon), ICB (Zaragoza, Spain) IST (Lisbon, Portugal), POLITO (Torino, Italy). 12 peer reviewed journals were already published and several others are under preparation. In addition to permanent members, Post-docs, MS and PhD students were working in collaboration between the institutions.

Inside UOB, several departments from the Faculty of Engineering were involved and the main purpose was to build a multidisciplinary team for energy production from waste that worked on the design of a solar catalytic reactor for conversion of municipal solid waste into energy in collaboration with the industrial group, INDEVCO.

Concerning consulting experience, Dr. El Hassan served in Civil Service Council in Lebanon, as a member of the juries (4 times) for recruitment of petroleum and petrochemical engineers for the ministry of energy, Lebanon, on January 2017 and January 2018 Dr. El Hassan served at the University level as member of the UOB Research council from 2011-2018. At the FOE level, she served in the Engineering Projects and theses committee at UOB from 2009-2016. In addition, she worked as ABET coordinator in the Chemical Engineering Department on 2018. In the University Of Balamand, Dr. El Hassan is currently the representative of the Faculty of Engineering in the University Research Board, and is chairing the Faculty of Engineering Research Committee since April 2019. In the Department of Chemical Engineering, Dr. El Hassan is chairing the External Advisory Board Committee and is a member of several other committees. Dr. El Hassan is solicited to review for leading peer-reviewed journals (more than 10 invitation per year): ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, Applied Catalysis A: General, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Catalysis Today, Chemical Engineering Journal, etc.

Second place award in LIRA 14, 2018, category: Materials and Nanotechnology Nanomaterials for Oil and Gas processing: manufacturing by chemical routes A. Saad, L. Inaty, A. Davidson, P. Massiani, H. Hamie, N. Hoteit, K. Jabbour, N. El Hassan
Third place award in LIRA 14, 2018, category: Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries Physico-chemical characterization of Antihyperglycemic drugs J. Saliba, N. El Hassan, C. Karam, S. Kyriacos
Two awards: Most distinguished supervisor award and first place awards in LIRA 13, 2017, category: Chemical and Pharmaceutical industries Valorization of methane by reforming: design of promising mesoporous catalysts C.Harika, B. Hajj-Hussein, N. El Hassan
Two awards : Most distinguished supervisor award and first place awards in LIRA 12, 2016, category: materials and nanotechnology Reforming kinetics over highly dispersed nickel nanoparticles supported on mesoporous silica prepared by a facile method L. Karam, N. El Hassan - Award for PhD category, LIRA 11, 2014 Bireforming of biomass for methanol production on nickel and natural silica based catalysts K. Jabbour, N. El Hassan, A. Davidson, P. Massiani