The Team

Dr. Ali holds a Bachelor of Science (honors)  in Civil Engineering from Khartoum University, and MS and PhD degrees in the area of geoinformation and geodetic engineering from The Ohio State University (OSU). While at OSU, Dr. Ali was with the Mapping & GIS Lab and OSU’s Center for Mapping. He taught at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) and the University of Central Florida (UCF) from 2003 to 2009 before joining AUS. Also, Dr. Ali was a “physical scientist” at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Labs in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA in 2000. At ETSU, Dr. Ali helped in developing a new “GIS and Mapping” track in the Bachelor of Science in Surveying and Mapping Science program, and in establishing a new GIS and Remote Sensing Laboratory and a CORS station. At UCF, he developed a new concentration in geomatics within the Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology program. At AUS, Dr. Ali developed and taught the first GIS course, CVE 472 Geographic Information Systems, and the first remote sensing course, CVE 572 Satellite Remote Sensing. Dr. Ali received an ESRI Award for the Best Scientific Paper in GIS in 2006, the ETSU Faculty Excellence Award in 2005, the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association's Murrough O'Brien Education Award in 2004, and The Ohio State University's Duane Brown Junior Award in 2003. Dr. Ali's research interests include coastal mapping, terrain modeling, wide-area GPS networks, and applications of GIS and remote sensing in environmental and transportation engineering.

Dr. Samy El Mahdy, Geospatial Scientist

Dr. Samy El Mahdy holds a Bachelor of Science in Geology from Ain Shams University, and a Master of Science in Remote Sensing and a PhD in the Application of GIS and Geomatics Engineering in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Putra. Dr. El Mahdy has more than 25 years of experience in research with particular interest in quantitative remote sensing, GIS and geosciences. He has successfully published more than 35 research articles in journals and conference proceedings. Dr. El Mahdy was awarded the gold medal from the Malaysian National Space Agency in 2011 and won first place in the Rashid bin Humaid Award for Scientific Research in 2017.

Rahul Gawai

Rahul Ghawai holds a Master of Science in Geoinformatics and a PGBSc in Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing from the University of Pune, India. He has worked in multidisciplinary subjects such as health science, geology, zoology, botany and watershed management in the field of GIS and remote sensing. He has more than 10 years’ experience in GIS and remote sensing. Prior to joining AUS, he worked for various GIS and government organizations in India and the UAE. He also has experience teaching in GIS and remote sensing at the Department of Geography of Savitribai Phule Pune University, formerly the University of Pune. His expertise includes GIS, data science, Python, ESRI Dashboard, drone mapping, remote sensing, ArcGIS Online, 3-D GIS and Adobe Creative Cloud, among other areas.

Dr. Mohamad Yahia

Dr. Mohamed Yahia holds a PhD in Telecommunication Engineering conjointly from National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse (INP Toulouse), France and University of Gabes, Tunisia. Dr. Yahia’s research interests include radar remote sensing, signal and image processing, numerical methods, optimization, and microwaves. His work in radar remote sensing includes filtering and classification.  He has published in leading journals such as IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.