Professor Al-Assaf graduated in 1988 with a first-class degree in Chemistry (Mosul University). He gained his MSc (1994) and PhD (1997) from Salford University (UK) in the field of radiation and solution properties of hyaluronan and cross-linked form (Hylan). Subsequently he took up a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Glyndwr University Wrexham (formally North East Wales Institute of Higher Education) working on the characterization and modification of hydrocolloids. In 2003 he became Director of the Phillips Hydrocolloids Research Centre at Glyndwr University and was promoted to a Reader in Chemistry in 2007 and was subsequently awarded a personal chair in 2012. He moved to Chester University in August 2015 to lead the Hydrocolloids Research Centre at the Institute of Food Science & Innovation. Professor Al-Assaf has secured research funding from various industrial collaborators and has published over 100 papers. He currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Future Foods and editor for Food Chemistry Advances, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules and Gels.