Hassan Qandil joined the Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, now the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as a lecturer at the University of North Texas.

Before joining UNT, Qandil worked as a mechanical engineer with more than seven years of experience in the oilfield, maintenance and energy businesses. He also worked as a field engineer for Schlumberger and BAUER Resources in Jordan, Malaysia, UAE and India.

Qandil’s research focuses on solar energy harvesting, with the use of algorithmically-optimized designs of Fresnel lenses. He is committed to commercializing the use of Fresnel-lens concentrators and its applications, while simplifying the process from design to implementation. Ongoing funded projects include solar water desalination, with the objective to build a hybrid fresnel-lens-and-PV-based solar device that can distill saltwater into potable water using only the energy from the sun. The system is designed to require little to no maintenance, be modular, scalable, transportable and deployable to disaster or crisis areas easily for use wherever saltwater is available.

Aside from being a Certified Energy Manager, Qandil received his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Energy Engineering from UNT, along with his master’s in energy management and bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, both from the University of Jordan. Qandil has earned scientific awards in international competitions, including the HCT-Wharton Innovation Tournament and the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Business Plan Competition, both in 2012.