Meet Our Speakers

Mohamed Abd Salam EL Vilaly is a Programme Officer with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Secretariat in Bonn, leading Information Management for the G20 Global Land Initiative. Mohamed Abd Salam El Vilaly received a B.Sc. in water resources management from the University of Nouakchott, Mauritania in 2001, a Specialized M.Sc. degree (diplôme d’études supérieures spécialisées ) in groundwater management from the University of Grenoble, France in 2003, a Research M.Sc. degree (Diplôme d’études approfondies ) in hydrology from the University of Avignon and the Vaucluse, France in 2004, and a Ph.D. degree in applied remote sensing for Earth Sciences from the University of Arizona, the United States, in 2013.

Dr. Abd Salam has over 18 years of combined work experience from the United Nations, the humanitarian, academic, and private sectors. His research focuses on integrating and analysing multitemporal airborne and satellite remote sensing data with GIS technologies to monitor and model human-environment interactions across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. More specifically, Abd Salam’s work intersects the concepts of big data analytics, decision-making, planning and management, and the development of online data and knowledge exploration tools and platforms.

Prior to joining the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification(UNCCD) as a Program Officer (Information Management), Dr Abd Salam worked for the International Food Policy Research Institute(IFPRI) in Washington DC, AfricaRice in Cotonou, Benin, United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA) in Johannesburg, South Africa and in New York, USA, and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia(UN-ESCWA) in Beirut, Lebanon.