Dr Shawki Barghouti Director General

Dr Barghouti, a Jordanian national, is ICBA’s second chief executive. He succeeds Dr
Mohammad Al-Attar, who led the center from its establishment in 1999, and retired in March Dr Barghouti, a Jordanian national, is ICBA’s second chief executive. He succeeds Dr2007.

Dr Barghouti holds a PhD in Agricultural Development from the University of Wisconsin, USA. Prior to his arrival at ICBA, he served with the World Bank in Washington DC as Advisor, Agricultural Science and Technology, and Manager of the Agriculture and Water Portfolio in South Asia. From 1997 to 1999 he served as Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India. He was also instrumental in the establishing the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).

Dr Barghouti has 35 years of experience in agricultural development and management, 20 of them in the Middle East. As a co-author of ICBA’s Strategic Plan, he is quite familiar with the center’s capabilities and goals.

Dr Taha joined ICBA in 2000 as the Director of Technical Programs (DTP). He holds a PhD from the University of Wyoming and has 30 years of professional experience in research and development in the USA, Canada, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. He has held key positions as Project Leader, Program Manager, Department Manager, Chairman, Professor and Technical Program Director at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Canada’s Agriculture Development Fund, UAE University and ICBA.

Dr Taha is an accomplished researcher and scientist with over 100 publications in refereed journals, proceedings, technical reports and scientific books. He is also the winner of various regional and international awards in agricultural research and development. Dr Taha has also served as a consultant to many regional and international organizations working in agriculture and natural resources.

Dr Taha, a USA national, is a frequent speaker at international conferences and is well known throughout the international agricultural research community.

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Dr Dakheel has a strong background in agricultural ecology and physiology of crop and natural plants. He worked at Aleppo University and as a consultant in ecology and physiology of cereal crops.

He moved to the UAE as Associate Professor of Arid Land Ecology at UAE University, where he assumed the position of Research Farm Director in addition to his other responsibilities.

Dr Dakheel, who comes from Syria, holds a PhD in Ecology from the University of California, Davis. He has over 25 years of research and academic experience.

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Dr Ismail is a research scientist and university educator with more than 24 years experience in saline agriculture research and development.

Prior to joining ICBA, Dr Ismail was Associate Professor in the Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Pakistan. His research was focused on forage production from saline and sodic soils and the use of saline irrigation water for sustainable productive agriculture in arid and semi-arid areas. He has worked on a number of national and international projects in Pakistan sponsored by local and international funding agencies.

Dr Ismail, a Pakistani national, holds a PhD in Plant Physiology from the University of Karachi.

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Dr Khalil Ammar Hydrogeology Scientist

Prior to commencing work with ICBA in 2009, Dr Khalil Ammar, a Palestinian citizen, headed up the planning department of the Palestinian Water Authority, where his role entailed water resources strategic policy and planning including environmental impact assessment and stakeholder consultation.

On receiving a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake his doctoral program in civil and environmental engineering from 2004 to 2007 at Utah State university, Dr Ammar specialized in groundwater quality assessment and management research as well as surface hydrology modelling; subsequently he worked in the private sector in America as a water resources planner.

Dr Ammar has had more than 15 years of experience in water resources management and strategic planning, groundwater modeling and hydrology and has published in scientific journals and conference proceedings. 

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Dr Rachael McDonnell Visiting Scientist

Since 2008 Dr Rachael McDonnell has been a Visiting Scientist in Water Policy and Governance at ICBA, where she has led research projects on water governance, strategic policy and regulation and charting future water policy directions.

In addition to this post, Dr McDonnell is a Senior Research Scientist at the Oxford Water Futures Programme (an inter-disciplinary, inter-departmental group of water researchers in Oxford University working together to provide insight and solutions to global water problems) and a member of Landscape Dynamics (a group researching the dynamics of dryland environmental systems, particularly in response to atmospheric and societal global change drivers).

Dr McDonnell's current research centers on several aspects of water science, policy and management. As well Dr McDonnell is part of the Oxford University core teaching staff for the MSc in Water Science Policy and Management as well as a supervisor of MSc dissertation research.

Dr McDonnell has co-authored several books and numerous journal articles.  

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Mr Bin Taher, a UAE national, joined ICBA in 2001. He is an accomplished public relations and communications expert and works with ICBA management to improve the interface between the center and the governments of the GCC countries, especially the UAE. He specializes in developing mass media campaigns and performance appraisal systems. Mr Bin Taher holds a Master’s degree in Media Organization Management from San Bernardino University, California, and a Bachelors degree in Mass Communication from UAE University.

Prior to joining ICBA, he was Head of the Public Relations and Media Section of Sharjah Municipality in the UAE. He previously worked as a journalist for seven years with the newspaper Al-Ittihad. Mr Bin Taher's responsibilities include editing all Arabic publications and press releases.

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Dr Toderich, who joined ICBA in 2006, is assigned to the ICBA office at Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and works with the Asian Development Bank-funded Aral Sea Project. Before coming to ICBA, Dr Toderich was Head of the Department of Desert Ecology and Water Resources Research with the Uzbekistan Academy of Science. A Romanian national fluent in several languages, including Russian and Uzbek, Dr Toderich is the first ICBA staff member to be based outside of the UAE.

 

Ms Carla Mellor Library Specialist

An Australian citizen, Ms Mellor started work at ICBA in 2005 as Library Specialist. Her most recent position before relocating to Dubai was Acting Executive Manager, Executive Services and Business Development in Queensland's Department of Education and the Arts. Prior to that, Ms Mellor worked as Executive Manager Policy with part-time stints in lecturing and tutoring in information management. With postgraduate qualifications in both Library Science and Business Administration, she worked for many years as the Director, State Reference Library, Queensland.

During the late 1980s, Ms Mellor was Manager, Library and Information Services, in the South Australian Department of Agriculture.