Murat Yessenov, PhD

Postdoctoral fellow at the John A. Paulson School of Applied Physics, Harvard University and visiting Research Associate at the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL), University of Central Florida. Murat’s research focus is on spatiotemporal wave packets and metasurfaces. He earned B.Sc. in Physics from Nazarbayev University in 2017 and Ph.D. in Optics from CREOL in 2022, where he pioneered research on space-time wave packets — a novel class of spatiotemporally structured optical fields.

Murat is a co-founder of KAPNA and currently serves as Chair of KAPNA’s Advisory Board.

Aliya Kuzhabekova, PhD

Associate Professor in Leadership, Policy, and Governance specialization at Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada. Aliya has extensive experience as a faculty member, administrator and scholar in international and Canadian contexts. Her research and teaching are based on her diverse administrative roles in higher education settings, including experience as an Executive Assistant to university presidents at two international universities in Kazakhstan, leadership positions on university committees and service as a member of the National Research Council in the area of education in Kazakhstan. Aliya is an active member of the Comparative and International Education Society and Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education.

Asset Abdualiyev, MSx MPA

CEO and Founder of Silkroad Innovation Hub – thriving startup community in Silicon Valley catering to entrepreneurs hailing from Central Eurasia. With a robust background in strategy and operations, he has previously held roles at Taskrabbit.com, McKinsey & Company, and the Almaty Mayor’s Office. Additionally, Asset is an angel investor and startup advisor. He also sits on the boards of Kazakhtelecom, the foremost telecommunications operator in Central Asia, and the American University of Central Asia, a leading institution for liberal arts education in the region. Asset holds Master’s degrees from Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Kennedy School, and the University of Dundee.

Eldar Akhmetgaliyev, PhD

Technical leader, serial entrepreneur and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Atarino. In 2009, Eldar graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (BA and MSc). In 2015, he received a PhD in Applied and Computational Mathematics from California Institute of Technologies. Eldar is also a member of the Board of Trustees at Yessenov Foundation.

Mansur Khamitov, PhD MBA

Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, a Founding Chair of American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Branding SIG, and a Communications Chair of Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP). Mansur obtained his Ph.D. from the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario (Canada). He also has experience teaching and guest lecturing at Nanyang Technological University, University of Western Ontario, and KIMEP University in Kazakhstan.

Nursultan Kabylkas, PhD

Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Nazarbayev University, where he leads the Micro Architecture Verification Center (Maveric@NU). He holds a PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his research centered on hardware verification, instruction set architectures, and microarchitectural design. In addition to his academic role, he works as a Senior Software Engineer (via Luxoft) for AMD. Nursultan is also the founder of TEXER.AI, a startup focused on building hardware-oriented software solutions, with products already undergoing industry testing.