Hawraa Ayoub, Ph.D., is a scientist with expertise in analytical and physical chemistry. She assists Keller and Heckman attorneys and their clients with technical matters related to regulatory compliance for food contact packaging, cosmetics, and medical devices in the European Union (EU), Member States, and other global jurisdictions. She advises on testing protocols to help generate data required for petitions and dossiers for submission to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), and other agencies throughout Europe and the Middle East. 

Hawraa has extensive experience with analytical techniques, including gas chromatography (GC), liquid chromatography (LC), mass spectrometry (MS), as well as spectroscopy, characterization techniques, and property prediction tools (such as QSAR toolbox, EPI suite, and Toxtree). She frequently performs health risk assessments to evaluate human exposure to chemicals present in food packaging materials (especially plastics, paper, and cardboard) and cosmetic materials (such as adsorbent hygiene products) using conservative approaches at different tiers. Hawraa has conducted studies and provided environmental risk assessments on the release, fate, and transport of organic chemicals in soil, water, and air originating from direct use, waste, and effluent disposal, or leached from materials. In addition, she advises attorneys on technical matters related to the EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

Prior to joining Keller and Heckman, Hawraa was a research engineer at a major corporation where she evaluated the migration of chemicals from food packaging (with and without food contact) through experiments, modelling, and conducting exposure assessments based mainly on European regulations. She has published a number of scientific articles, including ones on the analysis of micropollutants in water through the use of the mass balance approach and photocatalysis.