Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed

Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed is the Executive Director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. A recognized leader in renewable energy technology and regional cooperation, he launched and led the Institute’s Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation and served as the Institute’s Academic Director. One of the leaders of Israeli President Herzog’s Climate Forum, co-chairing the task force on Regional Cooperation and Security, he is the recipient of the 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science’s David and Betty Hamburg Award for Science Diplomacy.

Named one of “48 Israelis shaping Israel and the world, today and into the future” by Israel 21c in April 2023, Dr. Abu Hamed first joined the Arava Institute in 2008, when he established the Arava Institute’s Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation. He left the Institute in 2013 to become the Israeli Ministry of Science’s Deputy Chief Scientist, and later the Acting Chief Scientist, the highest ranking Palestinian in the Israeli government at that time. He returned to the Arava Institute in 2016. Today, he is recognized as a leader in regional environmental diplomacy and a sought-after speaker at international convenings including most recently the United Nations COP28.

Dr. Abu Hamed holds a Bachelor and a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Gazi University (Turkey), and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Ankara University (Turkey). He has completed two terms of postdoctoral research, one at the Environmental Science and Energy Research Department of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), and the second at the University of Minnesota’s Mechanical Engineering Department Solar Energy Lab. He also holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Hebrew University. He lives in East Jerusalem with his wife and five children.