January 26, 2018

Dr. Jauad El-Kharaz

Dr. Jauad EL KHARRAZ joined the Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC)[1], based in Muscat (Sultanate of Oman) as Director of Research on October 1st, 2015. Dr. EL KHARRAZ is in charge of delivering and developing a Research Program at that International Non-Profit Organization established to seek solutions to fresh water scarcity in the MENA region. Among other responsibilities, he manages and develops MEDRC research activities, and maintains and grow an expert-level network of technical, academic and policy specialists on a wide range of water issues. In addition, he will provide support to the development and delivery of training programs and consultancy projects. Dr. EL KHARRAZ has been information and projects manager at the Euro-Mediterranean Information System on know-how in the Water sector (EMWIS) Technical Unit based in Sophia Antipolis (France) for the last 11 years and half. He also worked as senior consultant for Sud-Convergences consultancy (France) in the period 2006-2008, and Expert Evaluator of the European Commission DG Research & Innovation. On the other hand, he is co-founder and General Secretary of the Arab World Association of Young Scientists (ArabWAYS), member of the Global Change Unit (University of Valencia, Spain). He is member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) that he represented in several occasions among others in the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Science & Technology group in Geneva. He was nominated in 2011 by the French Ministry of High Education & Research as representative at the Intergovernmental framework for EU Cooperation in Science & Technology (COST Action TN1301) in Brussels, where he led its Networking Working Group since end of 2011 in Vilnius (Lithuania). In 2014 he was nominated new leader for the tomorrow by Crans Montana Forum (Switzerland) and was also co-leader of the regional Think Tank WANA Forum (WANA Institute currently, Jordan). Dr. Jauad El Kharraz was one of 40 scientists worldwide selected to attend the “World Economic Forum ‘Summer Davos’ for New Champions” in Tianjin China in September 2012. He joined the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic by July 2014 and he became the founding curator (creator) of Nice’ hub (France) to push young talents from Nice develop projects of development for their local community. He has published and contributed to hundreds of conferences, journals and reports in the fields of water management, agriculture, water information systems, remote sensing applications and scientific research. Moreover, he visited more than 44 countries around the world, chaired several conferences and forums sessions/panels and served as referee and chair for many international scientific journals and international platforms. Dr. Jauad contributed to numerous projects funded by the European Commission, European Space Agency, and other regional programmes (FP5-FP7, H2020, ENPI NGO, ENPI CBC-Med, LIFE…). Among others, he is member of the Arab Water Council and AWARENET water network. Dr. EL KHARRAZ has obtained his MSc and PhD in Remote Sensing from the University of Valencia (Spain). He had also a Diploma in Enterprises management & strategy from SKEMA Business School in Sophia Antipolis (France).