Hassan A. Arafat

Director, Center for Membrane and Advanced Water Technology, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Biography

Prof. Arafat is the director of the Center for Membrane and Advanced Water Technology and professor of chemical engineering at Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, UAE. His current research expertise is in membrane-based desalination, with focus on third-generation desalination technologies such as membrane distillation (MD) and the development of novel membranes thereof. He initiated a new research trend on sustainable desalination, which integrates multiple multidisciplinary tools to enhance the prospects of deploying desalination, with the aim of achieving national water and food security. The concepts behind this trend are captured in his book: Desalination Sustainability: A Technical, Socioeconomic and Environmental Approach. Prof. Arafat received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Univ. of Cincinnati (Ohio, USA) in 2000 and a BSc in Chem. Eng. From the Univ. of Jordan. From 2000 to 2003, he worked at Argonne National Laboratory (Illinois, USA) as a postdoc then as a research scientist, developing processes for nuclear waste treatment at the United States Department of Energy (DOE) sites. Between 2003 and 2010, he was a faculty member of the Chem. Eng. Dept. at An-Najah University (Palestinian Territory). Between 2009 and 2012, he served as an adjunct associate professor of the Biological Eng. Dept. at Utah State Univ. (Utah, USA) and in 2010, he was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Massachusetts, USA). He is a recipient of research fellowships by the Open Society Foundation (USA) and DAAD (Germany). Through his career thus far, he supervised 30 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students and received 23 research grants, exceeding $13 Million in funding. His research was published in more than 225 book chapters, journal papers and conference presentations, in addition to two US patents and 50 keynote and invited talks worldwide. Among other honors, Prof. Arafat received the Khalifa Award for Education, presented by the President of UAE, the Mohammad Bin Rashid Medal for Scientific Excellence, presented by the Prime Minister of UAE, the United States Department of Energy Secretarial Honor Award, the Mondialogo Engineering Award by Daimler AG and UNESCO, and the Univ. of Cincinnati Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship.