H.E. Dr. Salem Alhajraf, former Minister of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy of the State of Kuwait, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gulf International Forum with over 30 years of experience in the energy field, mainly in the renewable energy, clean energy transition, and energy policy domain. He has previously held several senior roles, including the Deputy Director General of the Kuwait Foundation for Advancement (KFAS) and the Executive Director of the Energy and Building Research Center at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR). He is also the founder and project manager of the Shagaya Renewable Energy Park Initiative, a mega renewable energy project in Kuwait.

Dr. Alhajraf has served as a research fellow at several leading think tanks, including the Center for Energy Studies and the Edward P. Djerejian Center for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy (BIPP), the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University (CGEP), and the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics (LSE). He is also a research scientist at the Energy and Building Research Center at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR). His current research focuses on the impact of the clean energy transition on hydrocarbon-based economies, as well as the broader energy economics in the Gulf.

Dr. Alhajraf earned his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering between 1993 and 2001, and earned an MBA in 2007.