Meet the MAWRED Team at ICBA

The MAWRED team brings together climate, water and agricultural scientists along with experts in modeling, remote sensing, field work and policy development. We share an enthusiasm for using rigorous science to support socio-economic development and a passion to improve food and water security in vulnerable communities.

Dr. Rachael McDonnell :Project Lead

Head of Climate Change Modeling Adaptation Section | Water Governance and Policy Scientist

Rachael McDonnell is the Head of the ‘Climate Change Modeling and Adaptation Section' under the Research and Innovation Division and has a particular interest in droughts. Shejoined ICBA in 2008 as the Water Policy and Governance Scientist.Rachael holds a PhD, from University of Oxford, and has overseen the development of climate, water and crop modeling and data generation capabilities at ICBA. She has also worked on initiatives that have developed water and food security policies, and examined formal and informal governance systems and legal/regulatory frameworks around these key areas, in a number of countries.

Karim B. Bergaoui

Senior Scientist - Climate and Water Modeling

Karim Bergaoui works as a climate-modeling scientist at ICBA since 2010. His main goal is to enhance the simulation of the water cycle including groundwater resources, surface runoff, evapotranspiration and water used for irrigation in the Middle East and North Africa region. His work is to quantify and predict water cycle and environmental consequences of earth system variability and change on water resources and crop production. The prediction includes seasonal forecasting and climate change projections.

He has previously worked for Tunisian and French meteorological centers. During 10 years, he was responsible of the numerical weather prediction system in the Meteorological Institute of Tunisia. He actively contributed to the development of new data assimilation methods in METEO-FRANCE atmospheric model ALADIN.

Karim holds a Master degree, 1997, of Science: Ocean-Atmosphere-Biosphere Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France, and a Meteorological Engineering degree from The National School of Meteorology (Météo-France), Toulouse, France.

Dr. Makram Belhaj Fraj

Senior Scientist - Agronomy

Makram Belhaj Fraj joined ICBA in 2010 as an Agronomist working on cropping systems optimization in various environments of the MENA region. His work focused on the agronomic diagnosis of yield gap through crop modeling and simulation.

Makram holds a PhD in Agronomy, from ENSA Rennes – UMR INRA-INA Paris-Grignon, France, and his main areas of expertise are in agriculture monitoring (crop modelling and simulation, and yield gap analyses), development of finalized production and cropping systems to support end-users and decision makers.

Richard Sullit

GIS & Database Specialist ICBA

Richard Sulit joined ICBA in 2012 as a consultant to work on the United Arab Emirates National Agriculture Strategy project. Since then he has joined ICBA as the GIS/Database Specialist supporting the Climate Change Modeling and Adaptation Section. Before ICBA, Richard worked on various GIS related projects in the Philippines for the local government, national government and private sector. He also worked as the GIS Administrator at GRM International, and as GIS Specialist at Vision ME.

Richard holds Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering (B.S.Ae.E.) from PATTS and Computer Programming with CICS in STI. He is interested in the applications of GIS in spatially integrated social sciences, specifically environment interactions on land use change and physical activity.

Rashyd Zaaboul

Senior Scientist - Climate Modeling

Rashyd Zaaboul is a climate-modeling scientist at ICBA since 2013. Prior to that, for 14 years, he was a member of the Numerical Weather Prediction team working on the Moroccan limited area model’s maintenance and development that included physics schemes development (surface scheme, deep convection scheme...), observations management and 3D-VAR data assimilation. He was also involved in assisting the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry in providing numerical forecasts of drought related quantities could trigger forest fires such as temperature, humidity, wind, soil moisture and precipitations using the operational ALADIN- MOROCCO model.

Rashyd holds a Meteorological Engineer diploma from EcoleNationale de la Meteorologie (Toulouse) and EcoleHassania des Travaux Publics (Casablanca) and his Master degree in Public Management from InstitutSuperieur de l’Administration (Rabat).

Dr. Giulio Caroletti

Giulio Nils Caroletti holds a M.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy, 2007) and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics and Natural Sciences from the University of Bergen (Norway, 2015), where he was attached to the Geophysical Insitute. He worked as a research assistant at the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research (Norway, 2007-2011), and at the Hydrology Section of the University of Cagliari (Italy, 2012-2013), where he worked for the EU FP-7 funded CLIMB (CLimate Induced changes on the hydrology of Mediterranean Basins). He was lecturer in Boundary layer & local climates at the Department of Environmental and Health Studies of the Telemark University College (now: University College of Southeast Norway) for the spring 2015 semester. He started working at ICBA in April 2016.