Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ashraf El Saftawy earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Zagazig University in 2013, under the supervision of Prof. Ahmed Elfalaky, Prof. Magdy S. Ragheb, and Prof. Safwat G. Zakhary. His dissertation focused on “Regulating the beam performance parameters of accelerated particles.” In 2007, he completed his M.Sc. in Nuclear Physics at the same university, with a thesis titled “Factors enhancing the ion beam optics and beam transport in the low energy accelerator (50keV),” supervised by Prof. Zakaria Awaad, Prof. Mohamed M. Abdelbaki, and Prof. Safwat G. Zakhary. Additionally, Dr. El Saftawy obtained an M.Sc. Diploma in Radiation Physics from Zagazig University in 2000, working on a project on “Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy and materials analysis” under the guidance of Prof. Nassef Mansour.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ashraf El Saftawy has had a distinguished career in both academia and research. He served as an Associate Professor at the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority in Cairo from 2019 to 2022, following his tenure as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) from 2013 to 2019, an Assistant Lecturer from 2007 to 2013, and a Demonstrator from 2001 to 2007 at the same institution. Additionally, Dr. El Saftawy expanded his international experience as a Researcher at the Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM) in Leipzig, Germany, from 2015 to 2016 and concurrently held a Lecturer position at the Faculty of Science, Leipzig University. During his time in Leipzig, he assisted Prof. Bernd Rauschenbach in lectures, created and revised course materials, coordinated instructor presentations, assigned due dates, graded student work, and instructed students in lab tutorials. He further contributed to academia as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University in Cairo from September 2020 to May 2022, where he provided weekly lecture notes for wave mechanics and material properties classes, supervised students’ weekly experimental labs, taught experimental methods, and developed and executed a two-year curriculum overhaul.

Throughout his career, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ashraf El Saftawy has held various roles as a Research Scientist, contributing significantly to the field of material engineering and processing. He has investigated and developed innovative approaches to materials processing, collaborating with multiple departments and universities to ensure the effectiveness of these methods. His work included developing nanostructured surfaces and studying the dewetting mechanism of ion beam-irradiated nanofilms of noble metals. Dr. El Saftawy is proficient in a wide range of analytical methods and laboratory instruments, such as contact angle, FTIR, Raman-FTIR, ATR-FTIR, SEM, AFM, OM, XRD, and NMR. He has been the primary author, researcher, and analyst for the majority of his published articles, with 9 out of 13 attributed to his extensive research. Additionally, he has supervised four M.Sc. theses and one Ph.D., assisting many scientists who have acknowledged his contributions through their articles. Earlier in his career, Dr. El Saftawy worked as a Research Assistant with Prof. Magdy S. Ragheb from 2007 to 2013, where he created a scanning system for an electron gun machine and developed micro- and nano-surface features for biomedical applications and biosensors. From 2001 to 2007, he assisted Prof. Safwat G. Zakhary in building an ion beam accelerator, optimizing the beam transport system, and characterizing the output beam.