Rabi Mohtar

Professor Mohtar is the holder of TEES Endowed Professor at Texas AM University, College Station, USA. He is the Founding Executive Director of Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) a member of Qatar Foundation, Research and Development and the Founding Executive Director Strategic Projects at Qatar Foundation Research and Development. He was also the inaugural Director of the Global Engineering Programs at Purdue University, Indiana USA. He co-founded the Environmental and Ecological Engineering Division at Purdue University.

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Professor Mohtar’s research focused on conserving natural resources (including land, water, air, and biological resources) that face global challenges such as increasing food and water supplies for a growing population. He was a pioneer in developing a conceptual and modeling framework for the Water – Energy Food Nexus and linking science to policy. He developed environmental and natural resources conservation engineering programs that evaluate the environmental impacts of land use and water management; developed innovative soil and groundwater remediation technologies; applied numerical methods to biological engineering systems; characterized the soil water medium at the pedon, field, and watershed scales.  He also designed and evaluated international sustainable water management programs that deal with population growth and water shortage conditions in arid climates. His research has resulted in improved methods for environmental and natural resources engineering, many of which have been adopted by other professionals and agencies internationally.

He received numerous international research awards and honors including the Kishida International award for contributions to agricultural research and the distinguished alumni from the American University of Beirut, Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences. He served on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on water security since 2009-11 (vice chair 2011), climate change agenda council 2011-present), board of governors of the World Water Council (2012-present), advisory board of the UNFCC momentum of change initiative (2012-present), advisory board of the President of the University of Alberta Water Initiative (2012-2014) among many other global leadership roles. Prof. Mohtar has published over 200 publications including peer-reviewed articles, refereed conference proceedings, books and book chapters.