He holds a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT (2003) as well as a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard (2009). The research group he founded at KAUST studies the design and self-assembly of hybrid organic-inorganic materials for breakthrough applications in solar energy harvesting and optoelectronic devices. Bakr was selected as a Young Scientist by the World Economic Forum (2016) and as an Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2016). He was awarded the SABIC Endowed Presidential Career Development Chair (2013), the Zasshi-kai Lectureship Award by the University of Tokyo (2016), and the Innovator Under 35 Award in the Arab World by the MIT Technology Review- Arab Edition (2016).