Mohamed Salah Ghidaoui 

Candidate for:

Vice-President for Asia and the Pacific

Biography 

Mohamed Salah Ghidaoui, born on 24th of August 1964 in Tunisia, 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 a Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Engineers. Ghidaoui’s awards include the Arthur Ippen Award, IAHR; the Albert Berry Memorial Award, American Water Works Association; Hilgard Award for best paper (runner-up), Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, ASCE; Outstanding Faculty Award at HKUST and also 2 teaching excellence awards. He is a member of the IAHR council. He served as the chair of IAHR’s Fluid Mechanics Committee from 2013 to 2018. He is the editor of the Journal of Hydraulic Research (JHR) and served as its associate editor for 15 years, where the number of female associate editors was increased from 1 to 7. He is also the 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. He is a founding member of the IAHR Hong Kong Chapter and served as its chair over 10 years ago.  

Statement 

It is an enormous responsibility and at the same time a great privilege to be nominated for the vice-president position. Recently, IAHR developed an ambitious member/community-centered strategic plan (SP).  If elected, I commit to bring my energy, experience, enthusiasm and international networks & outlook to assist IAHR in achieving as well as advancing this SP.   In particular, I endeavour to    

• Promote and empower the next generation of IAHR leaders, increase diversity and awareness of global issues, and encourage communication and engagement across all units of IAHR.  I propose we (i) work with the Young Professionals Networks (YPNs) to establish virtual regular channels of communication and networking between current and future hydro-environment leaders to ensure continuous and timely mentorship and support, exchange of ideas, and access to state-of-the-art knowledge, information and know-how;  (ii) foster closer interactions, collaboration, and exchange of ideas and visits between the various IAHR national chapters and regional divisions; (iii) create “water ambassadors” to better integrate the various activities in the different divisions, chapters and YPNs; (iv) actively support national chapters and respective YPNs in identifying prominent members to deliver lectures to local chapters on relevant topics; and (v) intensify our efforts to ensure that every member has an even greater experience, a goal that all members, regardless of age, gender, race or beliefs, are given the needed support and opportunities to flourish.    

• Steer IAHR’s publications, specialty conferences and courses to focus on research and practice that address the overwhelming water challenges facing humanity by engaging fresh methodologies, approaches and perspectives. IAHR must protect and conserve its core research values by resisting the path of quantity of publications at the expense of quality. The “quantity norm” invariably pushes one towards the easy problems; yet, the water challenges facing humanity are as crucial as they are difficult! Addressing such challenges will require the council works with editors and organizers of IAHR events and activities to focus efforts on transformative and meaningful research that will lead to a quantum leap in knowledge, understanding and innovation.  

• Advance the global reach of IAHR.  While our members are leading many world-leading water projects and addressing water related-disasters, IAHR remains largely unknown to the public. I propose that we (i) form active communication channels with the media to share and amplify the impact that our members are making worldwide and to speak to, inform and educate the public during the time of water-related disasters; and (ii) document and promote signature projects that our members worked on.  In addition, a truly global IAHR must intensify its focus on Africa. This belief motivated me to organise and chair a session dedicated to water challenges in Africa at the 35th IAHR Congress in 2013 which attracted over 20 hydraulicians from Africa.  The Africa division is now thriving under the leadership of Dr Louati and I continue to support its activities (e.g., deliver lectures at its events and I will take part and deliver seminars in this summer’s IAHR visit to a number of key countries and regions in Africa). I aim to steer the IAHR council and the Africa division to build on this summer’s visit and (i) organise a successful IAHR conference in Africa within the next two years; and (ii) develop specific collaborative activities (e.g., co-supervision of research students; exchange of visits).