TECHNICAL COMMITTEE

Dr. Asfahani is CEO, General Organization for the Conservation of Coral reefs & Turtles in the Red Sea. Previously he was Head of Marine Environment Protection within the Environmental Protection Department of Saudi Aramco. Previous joining Saudi Aramco, he worked as an executive intern with Miami-Dade County under Office of Sustainability (OOS) for one year. He has been exposed to marine environment for over 17 years. Khaled earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marine physics from King AbdulAziz University (KAAU) and a master degree in coastal zone management from Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). Recently, he obtained a PhD degree in biophysical Oceanography from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Mr. Hijazi is a Principal Consultant with focus on Circular Economy. He has more than 30 years of experience, significantly with Saudi Aramco, in consulting, project management and business development in the environmental and energy sectors. Nabil has worked with the Alturki environmental consulting firm, AES International Consultants in the capacity of Business Development Director. He has a Master of Engineering Degree in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University and has attended Executive MBA Programs at McGill University.

Dr. Nawaf Isam Blaisi holds a Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Advanced Degree in Sustainability from Michigan Technological University, USA, a Ph.D. degree from University of Florida, USA, a Learning and Teaching in Higher Education for Faculty Members Fellowship from UK, previously held the position of Vice Dean for Training and Community Service, Environmental Engineering Chairman, Assistant Professor, a valid membership of scientific and professional societies and organizations, acted as an academic supervisor and mentor for both undergraduate and master students and actively shouldered chairing or coordinating many committees and entities within higher education institutions and research centers.

Dr. Meisen advises boards and senior management in Canada and internationally on strategy development. A recent major initiative is Bitumen Beyond Combustion, a project focused on making non-combustion products from oilsands bitumen. Currently, he advises the Capital Regional District of British Columbia on solid waste management and the Universidad de Piura (Peru) on innovation.

Dr. Meisen held the inaugural Chair in Foresight at the Alberta Research Council, after serving as president of Memorial University of Newfoundland and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and Dean of Applied Science and Professor of Chemical Engineering at The University of British Columbia (UBC). A Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Chemical Institute of Canada, and the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, Dr. Meisen is a UBC Professor Emeritus and Professional Engineer. He received honorary doctorate degrees from The University of Waterloo and Universidad de Piura and was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2008.

Dr. Meisen holds Bachelor, Master, and doctorate degrees in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, California Institute of Technology, and McGill University, respectively.

Dr Ömer AĞA received his Ph.D. in 2000 from Middle East technical University, Turkey. Prof AĞA joined the Department of Environmental Engineering, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU), KSA since 2009.
His work is focused on Indoor and outdoor Air quality, Air pollution control, Waste management, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Soil pollution and remediation. He has been involved in more 30 environmental consultancies and conducted over 25 international and national funded research projects.
Prof Dr AĞA has published to date over 50 refereed articles in highly indexed journals (SCOPUS / Web od Sciences) , 1 chapter in refereed international level books and 4 national level books. He continues to serve as peer reviewer for several international journals (including, Environment international, Soil, Air and water Pollution, Atmospheric research, Environmental Engineering Sciences, etc…).
Prof AĞA contributed to the establishment and development of environmental engineering programs in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. He has academic, managemental and leadership skills, as he served as the head of environmental engineering department as well as vice dean for quality and strategic planning, permanent committee of curriculum development, and permanent committee of research at IAU. He also lead and supervised the ABET accreditation and safety committees at the college of engineering, IAU.
Prof Dr AĞA has granted various research awards related to air, water and soil pollution management. He recently received HCH Prince Saud Bin Naif "Sanabil" award for his patent "EcoTree".

Dr. Saidur R. Chowdhury is an Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering Department at Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (PMU), Al Khobar in Saudi Arabia. He completed his PhD in Environmental Engineering from the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Western University (UW) in Canada. His doctoral dissertation investigated the performance of different iron oxide nanoparticles and recycled waste products (e.g. Ni smelter slag) for contaminated water and site treatment. Dr Chowdhury is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng) in the province of Ontario in Canada. He has over two years of Postdoctoral experience at both Western and the Simpson Environmental Corporation in Burlington, Ontario as well as University of Saskatchewan and Syncrude Canada LTD. He also worked as an Environmental Research Manager at Toronto Inspection Ltd. in Canada.
Dr Chowdhury has involved in designing remediation methods for contaminated site in Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Ontario, Canada. He is registered with the Ministry of Environment and climate change to act as a Qualified Person (QP) for Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) and treatment under Ontario Regulation 153/04. His research interests are in the general areas of environmental and geo-environmental engineering; application of nanomaterials for environmental treatment; recycling waste product for water treatment; development of reactive media for water or wastewater treatment and resource recovery.

Dr. Forbes McDougall is a sustainability professional with 20+ years’ experience in environmental engineering, circular economy, municipal waste management and life cycle thinking. He recently joined Saudi Aramco as their Global Leader for plastic recycling and waste management and has both strategic and technical responsibility for all Aramco waste generated globally.

He is a Visiting Professor of Practice in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University in the UK.

He was the Head of Circular Economy at Veolia UK from 2014 until 2019. This central coordinating role was created in 2014 and brought together Veolia’s capability in Strategy, Innovation, Technology, Materials, Water and Energy and worked closely with key business development functions to identify and develop new Circular Economy opportunities for all commercial, industrial and municipal customers.

Prior to joining Veolia, Forbes was the Global Waste Strategy owner for Procter & Gamble, responsible for the management of the waste from 150 sites in over 40 countries. Between 2007 and 2014 he was responsible for increasing diversion from landfill from 56% to 92% globally, delivering more than 70 zero waste to landfill sites and around $20 million in savings and revenue per year from reuse and recycling programs. Before this, he developed a Life Cycle Inventory computer model for Integrated Waste Management systems and has compiled case studies on the potential environmental and economic advantages of using life cycle tools to optimise these integrated waste management systems. He also wrote the 2nd Edition of the book “Integrated Waste Management: A Life Cycle Inventory” (Pub. 2001). This 2nd edition provided a user-friendly computer model (IWM-2) for waste managers. IWM-2 was designed to be an "entry level" LCI model for solid waste, appropriate to anyone starting to apply life cycle thinking to solid waste systems. The book was written for policy-makers in local, national and international government, and for waste managers and professionals in industries concerned with solid waste management. The book has been translated into Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.

Dr. Adel Al Khalifah owns highly creative leadership and executive management. His work experiences included in Saudi Aramco, Sabic, energy and power generation. In addition, his work extends analytical advisory on business and market development. He graduated from King Fahad university of petroleum and minerals, KFUPM. Adel participated in a number of research and environmental studies in US and Canada universities. He is a board member in many engineering and scientific associations for instance ETMA-AWMA and AGS-AACE. He has great interest and writing in the field of artificial intelligence. He believes that AI and automation will change every thing from how things are produced to how business decisions are made. AI coupled with other technology breakthroughs will benefit human well-being, accelerate new sources of clean energy and safe food. This will inspire our future generations. Doctor of Philosophy (Environmental Sciences)

Master of Environmental Sciences

B.Sc In industrial Chemistry

Earned AACE’s Certified Cost Engineering Consultant, August 31, 2009 from the Association for the Advanced of Cost Engineering, USA
Earned Associate certificate in Environmental Management, November 2010 from IEMA International Associate Certificate in Environmental Management institute; UK, Birmingham.
High level experience in leadership and executive management.

Mr Abdul Wahab acquired B.Sc in Geophysics from King Saud University, Riyadh in 1995. After he graduated he immediately joined ARGAS company, Saudi Arabia, as Processing Geophysicist till the year 1998. He has vast experience in the field of geosciences together with environment and in that time he started Saudi Geophysical Consulting Company. He was so keen to open his own Geosciences and Environmental Consulting Company, he started his efforts even before he graduated from University. Today Mr Abdul Wahab is the founder of 3 successful companies, involved in Geosciences and Environment Development solutions, which is Saudi Geophysical Consulting Office (SGCO), EDCO-SUEZ Arabia Environmental Services (EDCO) and Geophysical Equipment Factory Ltd. (GEFL).

Mr. Acero has over 20 years of experience in the area of Portland cement and Asphalt concrete pavement materials. His interests include evaluation and implementation of innovative pavement materials, development of material specifications, material performance evaluation, quality control / assurance programs, testing protocols, pavement constructability and asset condition assessments. During his tenure as a Civil Material Engineer in Saudi Aramco he has participated in the implementation of Sulfur Extended Asphalt, Fiber Reinforced Polymers for building and construction and Asphalt Rubber (rubberized asphalts). Prior to joining Aramco in 2014, Mr. Acero held various engineering positions for an international engineering consulting firm; from his base office in California, he participated on projects in the US, Mexico and the west of Africa. Mr. Acero holds a Professional Engineering Registration in California and with the Saudi Council of Engineers; and has been member of professional organizations including: ACI, ASCE and the Technical Advisory Committee of the California Asphalt Pavement Association.

Mahmood H Daghastani's 27-year career with the company has seen him work at company locations across the Kingdom from upstream oil and gas, Engineering to Downstream refining and HC distribution. He holds a B.A., in Marine Science from King Abdulaziz University. His work in the environmental field supported him to recognize waste management circular economy opportunities where recently he was involved in piloting Recycled Plastics and Rubber in Asphalt Pavement.

Mohammed M. Rayes is a civil and environmental engineer who works at Saudi Aramco. He has completed his Bachelor degree at Merrimack College, USA. Mohammed has been working over 3 years in the building and construction sector, which mainly focuses on sustainability and innovation. His work is intended to close the loop in the circular economy by working in deploying several sustainable technologies and ideas, such as; Asphalt Rubber, Concrete Rubblization, Recycled Plastic Asphalt, and Green Concrete. He has dedicated his work into spreading awareness regarding environmental concerns and spent significant time in volunteer work, to raise public awareness in the sustainable building and construction field.

24 years experience in the Plastic Flexible Packaging and Recycling Industry including the responsibility of 4 Plastic Converting Plants and a Recycling/ Compounding Plant in one of the Major Groups in this industry in our region - Napco National.

The above experience, which encompasses the Petro Chemical Plastic Industry value chain as a whole, set the stage for my promotion to Vice President of Petro Chemical Packaging and Plastic Recycling at Napco National.

In full harmony with the above career evolution, I volunteered and became an active member of the GPCA plastic Committee since 2013, as well played a large role in building the Plastic Conversion Segment of the Saudi Cluster Program. Furthermore, I have actively participated in the design of the training program for the Higher Institute for Plastic Fabrication (HIPF) to serve the upstream and downstream plastic industry.

My passion for the sector globally, and in the GCC particularly keeps increasing.

Reem Al Halawani holds a Masters degree in Environmental sciences from University of Colorado Denver and a Bachelors in Medical Technology. She has more than 7 years of experience working in the Environmental field professionally and voluntarily. From 2011 to 2013 Reem worked as a teaching assistant for several environmental subjects at the university of Colorado Denver and as a research assistant on topics with the EPA and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. From 2013 to 2017 Reem worked voluntarily in Waste management projects with local companies in Denver, US Composting Council.

Since 2017 Reem returned to Saudi Arabia and joined the Saudi Consultant office as an Environmental Engineer working on ESIA studies and reports. During that she worked as scientific committee leader for the first Industrial Environmental Forum (Beiey) sponsored by GAMEP, MEWA.

Currently Reem is working at the National Center for Environmental Compliance as an assistant to the CEO and the Secretariat for the NCEC Board of Directors under the Chairman the minister of Environment Eng.Abdulrahman Al Fadhli. She is also working with MEWA as a consultant with the Strategy Management with Booz Allen and Hamilton Office on the National Environmental Strategy and the Establishment of the 5 national centers and the Environmental Fund.

Reem was part of the G20 Environment Group specifically the MPL topic. Reem has attended different circular economy workshops and waste management with UNEP, Japan and European Union.

Hassan Alzain is an experienced Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in the UK with BSc in Environmental Health from Liverpool John Moores University. Hassan’s experience with Environmental Protection Organization spans comprehensively across the Environmental Health Spectrum; building capacity and fostering innovation to tackle emerging health and wellbeing challenges. Hassan participated in international and national environmental and health conferences, workshops and awareness campaigns. In addition, Hassan was elected by Saudi Aramco Management to assure the responsibilities of being a Corporate Youth Advisor of Saudi Aramco’s Young Leaders Advisory Board with direct reporting line to Saudi Aramco’s President and CEO. Most recently, Hassan was appointed to assume project management responsibilities of Saudi Aramco’s Contractor Wellbeing Program, as well as Technology Co-Champion for Environmental Protection to leverage Saudi Aramco’s Technology and Digital Transformation Strategy in scouting and deploying advanced technologies in the fields of Environmental and Health Protection.