Dr. Zaki Ahmad obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds in Metallurgy.  He joined the Mechanical Engineering department of King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in 1980.  He specializes in the field of corrosion engineering, development of new alloys for industrial  and marine environment and nanostructured coatings.  He has a distinguished teaching and research career in highly reputed institutions in Germany, UK and USA.  He has won several awards and honors for excellence in research and teaching.  He is a fellow of Institute of materials, and Institute of Metal Finishing (UK) and a member of Education group of European Federation of  Corrosion.  He developed a new aluminum bronze with Metallgessellschaft A.G. Germany and modified alumininum alloys with GKSS, Germany.  He is working extensively  on the corrosion mechanism of Al-SiC composites and effect of Scandium on Al-Mg alloys for transport industry.  His major interests are in the area of new alloy development, Al-SiC composites, corrosion sensors, development of nanopaints for harsh environments, plasma spray and nanostructured Titanium dioxide coatings for stratergic applications. Established several corrosion laboratories in Iran, Germany, and Saudi Arabia.  The Corrosion Laboratory at KFUPM established by him is a centre of excellence. He is establishing nanotechnology lab at ME department, KFUPM.  He has been the principal investigator of several International Projects  with Germany, Austria and U.K.  He has participated in several Industrial Projects. 

He developed and taught a large number of graduate and undergraduate courses in corrosion and materials science.  He has a wide range of academic expertise  in planning of graduate programs, international collaboration programs, and designing online learning programs.  He has offered a large number of Short Courses  to industry.  He organized international symposiums and workshops  in materials and corrosion.  He has participated in invited lecture talks and seminars in U.S.A., Canada, U.K., Germany, Austria and Pakistan. He has been appointed as the group leader of the Materials group in the Center of Excellence of Nanotechnology, KFUPM. He is developing research & academic collaboration programs in Nanotechnology with the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia and Technical University of Sydney. He is Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Sydney, Australia with whom he is developing programs and shortcourses and reduced heat load nanopaints for strategic applications.

Has Published  over seventy research papers and presented thirty papers in Int’l conferences.  He has recently published a book on "Principles of Corrosion Engineering and Corrosion prevention" published by Elsevier Science, UK (August 2006) which is rated very high by some experts.