Consultant | Aug 2024 - Present

• Provided program level strategic advisory and contributed to regional initiatives supporting innovation, capacity development, and governance in agrifood systems, with a focus on food safety, digitalization, and climate-resilient technologies across the Near East and North Africa (NENA) region.
• Co-led the design and implementation of a region-wide participatory process to co-create the Regional Food Safety Research and Innovation Network (RFSRIN) under FAO’s Technical Cooperation Programme, advancing a South–South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) approach to strengthen research collaboration, innovation pathways, and institutional coordination across more than 10 countries. Designed and facilitated multi-level regional consultations, including stakeholder mapping, surveys, bilateral dialogues, and an in-person co-creation workshop, translating diverse national priorities and capacities into a shared regional research agenda.
• Led benchmarking of regional and global research and innovation networks and co-developed the Network’s governance framework, clarifying roles, decision-making processes, and mechanisms for shared ownership. Established four thematic working groups (research; innovation and technology; capacity building; policy and regulation), supporting leadership nominations, thematic group workplans, and sustained interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Designed and delivered regional innovation and capacity-development, including a regional food safety hackathon, and structured post-hackathon incubation pathways.
• Provided financial and operational oversight for regional innovation and capacity-development activities, including managing budget allocations and competitive awards for FAO-supported e- learning programmes, and coordinating academic institutions, regulators, and training providers to deliver bilingual online courses.
• Led the development of technology assessment frameworks and user-friendly digital tool in collaboration with FAO, IFAD, and the Islamic Development Bank, mapping 349 technologies and innovations across multiple countries and identifying 120 high-potential solutions using multi-criteria metrics (affordability, reliability, environmental performance, readiness for scale, gender sensitivity and social acceptance).
• Served as lead author of the FAO technical paper ERC/24/2 on innovation and digitalization to accelerate climate-resilient and low-emission agrifood systems and report titled “Mapping affordable and transferable climate-smart technologies for smallholder farmers”.

External Program Evaluator, Consultant | Jul 2022 – Present

• External program evaluator for the National Science Foundation funded project: AccelNet- Implementation: US-Africa Sustainable Food Systems through Water-Energy- Food Nexus Networking.
• Leading the design, implementation, analysis, and reporting for project evaluation surveys, stakeholder interviews, and focus group discussions.
• Co-leading the development of Collaborative Learning Schools aimed at building a science network of US, African and EU organizations and networks.

Consultant | Feb 2025 - Present

• Providing senior technical and strategic leadership to advance the Water-Energy-Ecosystem Nexus (WEEN) approach under a GIZ-supported programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing on translating nexus concepts into operational, decision-relevant programming in a fragile and resource-constrained context.
• Leading the design and coordination of a capacity development programme for cross-sectoral stakeholders in the DRC, strengthening integrated planning and decision-making across water, energy, and ecosystem domains, in close coordination with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Centre de Recherche en Ressources en Eau du Bassin du Congo (CCREBAC), and the Consensus Building Institute.
• Guiding the development and delivery of capacity-building activities covering integrated modeling and scenario analysis, nexus governance, gender-sensitive and inclusive solutions, climate resilience, and participatory approaches to cross-sectoral coordination, tailored to national and sub-national stakeholder needs.
• Strengthening collaboration among international partners and national counterparts, aligning analytical tools, governance approaches, and stakeholder engagement processes to support more coherent, evidence-based, and inclusive WEEN implementation in the DRC.

Consultant | Feb 2025 - Dec 2025

• Designed and delivered a four-module online capacity-building course on the Water-Energy- Food-Ecosystems Nexus for policymakers and technical experts from nine Mediterranean countries under the GEF/UNEP-MAP MedProgramme executed by GWP-Med.
• Led development of course concept, curriculum, and two modules (“Scenario Development and Nexus Assessments for informed decision-making” and “Operationalizing Nexus Solutions”), integrating systems-thinking, scenario analysis, climate impacts, and Nexus assessment tools, while contributing technical inputs across all modules.
• Delivered instructor-led webinars, moderated discussion forums, and coordinated expert contributors, synthesizing participant feedback to strengthen module design and overall training quality.

Consultant | May 2024 - Aug 2024

• Led the development and delivery of training materials and technical assistance to strengthen the capacity of Arab stakeholders to formulate project concept notes and proposals that can facilitate access to biodiversity finance.
• Prepared tutorial material and online training sessions with case studies, practical examples, interactive exercises and visual tools to support participants in applying their new knowledge to elaborate specific project ideas and concept notes in thematic areas including 1) nature-based solutions for climate resilience, 2) land degradation in arid agricultural ecosystems, and 3) renewable energy and biodiversity.

Expert Evaluator | Feb 2024

• Served as expert evaluator for one of PRIMA’s Water-Energy-Food-Environment Nexus funded programs.

Consultant | Jul 2022 - May 2024

• Led high-level technical engagements with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministries of Water, Energy, Agriculture, Environment, and Planning in Jordan, facilitating structured dialogue sessions to identify barriers to cross-sectoral coordination and co-develop a national governance framework for the Water-Energy-Food-Environment (WEFE) Nexus, subsequently endorsed by the Prime Minister’s Office.
• Conducted an extensive review of scientific and grey literature to identify global best practices and institutional models for WEFE Nexus governance, including comparative case studies from Tunisia, Morocco, and Singapore, and synthesized findings into policy-relevant recommendations to strengthen coordination mechanisms, evidence-based decision-making, and policy coherence.
• Designed and implemented a participatory stakeholder engagement process involving 35+ representatives from government ministries, civil society, and development partners; conducted and analyzed interviews and facilitated technical workshops to inform the national framework. Served as lead author of the GIZ-commissioned report “Governance and Institutional Frameworks Analysis and Global Lessons Learned: Development of a Framework for the Governance of the WEFE Nexus in Jordan.”

Consultant | Apr 2023 - Nov 2023

• Conducted in-depth research and analysis to identify systemic interdependencies within the food- energy-migration nexus in the Northern Triangle, resulting in the development of a white paper including a decision support framework and policy recommendations for climate-resilient pathways titled, “A Systems Approach for Disaster Risk Reduction: Exploring the Nexus of Energy, Food, and Human Mobility in the Northern Countries of Central America”.
• Organized and moderated an online multi-stakeholder consultation meeting to communicate research findings and engage in a dialogue about evidence-based climate action and disaster risk reduction strategies in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala

Consultant | May 2023 - Aug 2023

• Co-designed and led a two-day regional dialogue in partnership with IWMI and UN ESCWA in Beirut, Lebanon, on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus and its role in building resilience within fragile and conflict-affected agri-food systems, resulting in the policy brief "Building resilience in fragile and conflict-affected agrifood systems through a water-energy-food nexus approach."
• Supported program development across the full lifecycle, including conceptualizing the workshop program, curating speakers, developing session content and moderation guides, facilitating plenary and working sessions, drafting proceedings, and leading policy brief development.

Consultant | Oct 2022 - Mar 2023

• Provided expert guidance and advisory to a consulting team on the development of a water- energy-food-environment nexus decision support tool for the City of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Consultant | Jan 2019 – Dec 2021

• Designed and delivered four Water Innovation Labs, training over 300 young professionals, through immersive leadership workshops designed to accelerate collaborative innovation and devise new innovations for improved water security under climate change.
• Water Innovation Lab - Lebanon (video)

Consultant | Sep 2020 – Oct 2021

• Co-led the authorship of the report: Water and Youth Opportunities in the Mediterranean: Gap Analysis and Survey Results
• Conducted surveys; designed and delivered youth engagement workshops related to the future of water jobs in the Mediterranean and the skillsets needed in a post Covid-19 marketplace
• Co-developed UfM’s “Water and Youth Engagement Strategy 2023-2028”

Consultant | Sep 2019 - Sep 2020

• Developed a Water-Energy-Food-Health decision support tool for evaluating the trade-offs and synergies of multi-sectoral strategies toward improving food security policies and nutrition outcomes of the nationally produced food basket in Lebanon.
• Developed a conceptual framework and methodological approach which included the identification of multi-dimensional criteria for evaluating different national food production scenarios including water, energy, land, and carbon footprints, as well as cost and nutrition outcomes.
• Co-authored an FAO report and two policy briefs summarizing study outcomes.
• Lead author for peer-reviewed journal article: “Food security under compound shocks: Can Lebanon produce its own Mediterranean food basket?”, published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
• Led the development of a survey to investigate small scale farmers' willingness to adopt different interventions in rural Beqaa region including water reuse, solar pumping, and shift in crop production.

Consultant | Jun 2013 - Dec 2014

• Co-authored the report: “Renewable Energy and Water-Energy-Food Nexus”
• Conducted an extensive literature review for the status of renewable energy globally and developed a framework for assessing national renewable energy deployment scenarios