Dr. Essam Heggy
Chief Scientist and Research Director of the Earth Science Program at Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI)
Dr. Essam Heggy is the Chief Scientist and Research Director of the Earth Science Program at the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI), under Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). His research interests in space and planetary geophysics aim to understand subsurface water and ice occurrence and distributions in Earth’s arid regions, Mars, the Moon, Jovian icy moons and near-Earth objects using radar techniques.
Dr. Heggy is also a research scientist at the Viterbi School of Engineering in the University of Southern California, and affiliate of the Radar Science and Engineering section NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is also tenured Associate Professor at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France, member of the French National Council of Astronomy & Physics (CNAP) and served in several advisory roles for international agencies supporting educational and scientific reforms in the MENA area.
Dr. Heggy is also a contributing scientist to several NASA & ESA proposed planetary and terrestrial radar imaging and soundings experiments including the RIME radar on the JUICE mission to Jupiter and Envision radar for Venus. He works on a wide range of space exploration projects, including with the Mars Express orbiter, the Chandrayaan-1, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Dr. Heggy authored more than 75 peer review scientific papers in the top tier journals in Earth and Planetary Sciences including Science and Nature and more than 200 proceedings and abstracts in international conferences with peer review committees. Dr. Heggy obtained both MSc. and Ph.D. respectively in 1999 and 2002 with distinguished honors from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.