Mohamed Salah Ghidaoui 

Candidate for:

Vice-President for Asia and the Pacific

Biography 

M.S. Ghidaoui received the BASc, MASc and Ph.D. all in Civil Engineering from University of Toronto, Canada, in 1989, 1991 and 1993, respectively. Since July 1993, he has been with the Department of Civil Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), where he currently holds the positions of Chair Professor position in Civil and Environmental Engineering as well as the Named Chinese Estates Professor of Engineering. He has spent his sabbatical leave at the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA and the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Canterbury, NZ. Ghidaoui is the Vice-President for Asia and the Pacific, The International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR). He is a Distinguished Fellow of IAHR and a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers (HKIE). He served as the chair of IAHR’s Fluid Mechanics Committee from 2013 to 2018. He is also served as the editor in chief of the Journal of Hydraulic Research from 2016 to 2023 and as its associate editor for 15 years. He is associate editor of the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE; and Journal of Hydro-environment Research, IAHR-APD. He is an editorial board member of the Theoretical & Applied Mechanics Letters (TAML), Chinese Academy of Sciences and The Chinese Academy of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and served as an advisory board of the Journal of Hydroinformatics for 12 years. Ghidaoui’s awards include the Arthur Ippen Award, IAHR; the Albert Berry Memorial Award, American Water Works Association; the Erskine Fellowship from University of Canterbury, NZ; Hilgard Award for best paper (runner-up), Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE; Outstanding Faculty Award at HKUST. He also received two teaching excellence awards at HKUST. Ghidaoui’s group received the and silver medal at the recent International Exhibition of Inventions in Geneva, Switzerland, for their time reversal (TR) diagnostic technology for urban water systems. Ghidaoui has five TR-related US patents one of which has been licenced by Hyele Limited ─ a startup company  founded by his former students.

Statement 

It is an enormous responsibility and at the same time a great privilege to continue to serve in the vice-president position for another two years (2025-2027). In the coming two years, I will Continue/build-upon/expand-on the initiatives started in my first term. Such initiatives include:

• The launch of the IAHR Educational Products (courses), which is part of a broader strategy aiming at expanding IAHR's portfolio of publications by adding fundamental as well as practice orientated courses as valuable knowledge products (so far, 3 courses are planned for 2025 with the inaugural course being held in March 2025 and the 2nd in August 2025)

• Development of the framework for leveraging the wealth of expertise of our IAHR Technical Committees in supporting and strengthening our publications and education mission (so far this has resulted in commitment to produce 2 IAHR Water Monographs, 2 Themed Hydrolinks, vision papers, 10 online courses to IAHR members with some of them focussed on regional challenges and needs)

• The introduction of sessions at IAHR conferences where IAHR leaders and the Young Professionals Networks (YPNs) communicate, network, exchange views and where YPNs receive timely mentorship and support IAHR members (the inaugural session took place in October 2024 at IAHR-APD in Wuhan, China, where the IAHR president, one VP, the current editors of  JRBM and JHER and the immediate past editor of JHR held a successful session with students and young researchers)

• Introduction of the governance rules and procedures for appointing and evaluating editors of IAHR journals.

• The active support of all IAHR editors to help them in their drive to elevate the quality and standing of our journals. I am also exploring the creation of a committee of water ambassadors to integrate the educational and research activities in the different divisions, chapters and YPNs. Naturally, it is important to continue to work with all editors to resist the path of quantity of publications at the expense of quality, mitigate threats that come with tools such as ChatGPT, and focus efforts on transformative and meaningful research that will lead to a quantum leap in knowledge, understanding and innovation.