Hesham El-Askary

Prof. El-Askary received his Ph.D. in Computational Sciences and Informatics from George Mason University in 2004 along with his two MS degrees in Computational sciences and Earth Systems Sciences. In 2015 he earned Chapman University's elite Senior Wang-Fradkin Professorship award. In 2018, he was named a ‘Game Changer: Orange County Leaders Transforming the World’ by the Orange County Business Council. Prof. El-Askary served as the regional coordinator on a $3 ME project under the Horizon 2020 framework. He currently serves as the vice leader to the dissemination work package in the EU InDUST cost initiative. In 2019, Prof. El-Askary contributed among only 200 scientists worldwide to the IPCC report on the Desertification Chapter. He was also invited by the UN secretariat to the COP14 meeting in New Delhi to present on the sand and dust storms side event and to be part of the global sand and dust storms coalition. He has contributed significantly to the COP27, COP28, COP29 that took place in 2022, 2023 and 2024 in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt, Dubai UAE and Baku Azerbaijan, respectively, via more than 40 sessions as a moderator, original contributor and keynote speaker. Prof. El-Askary has more than 200 peer reviewed publications, book chapters, and a conference paper and raised more than 15M USD in research funds. In 2022, 2023, he received 3.3 M USD from the US congress to advance his Earth Systems Science and Data Solution (EssDs) Lab research on Climate change. Currently he manages CiROCCO related to solar and established a station at BUE for measuring solar and climate indicators for modeling of dust impact on renewable energy sector. In 2025, Dr. El-Askary was selected to be the Lead Author on one of the Chapters of the IPCC AR7 report.