Shabbir A Shahid was awarded the prestigious Sir William Roberts award to pursue Ph.D. degree in Soil Science specialization in Soil Micromorphology of Salt-affected Soils at the University of Bangor, Wales, UK, completed in 1989. He has over 40 years´ experience as Soil Scientist in Pakistan, UK, Australia, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait. Currently, he is Research Scientist, Desert Agriculture and Ecosystems Program, ELSRC-KISR. He was Technical Coordinator in multi-million national soil surveys of the State of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi Emirate and developed soil survey action plan for the Northern Emirates of UAE and the Republic of Mauritania. He, with his co-associates, discovered anhydrite soil which is formally added in the twelfth edition of US Keys to Soil Taxonomy as a diagnostic horizon, mineralogy class and subgroups in the Salids suborder of the order Aridisols. He is also Principal Author of United Arab Emirates Keys to Soil Taxonomy published by Springer. In addition, heis Creator and Co-Founder of Emirates Soil Museum launched in 2016 at the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He is Prolific Author of over 200 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, book chapters, conference proceedings, and newsletters. As Editor/Co-editor/Principal Author, he published 7 books by professional publisher Springer. At the time of publication, his RG score was 26.45, h-index 20 with 1435 citations, and over 115,035 reads globally. His RG score 26.45 is higher than 82.5% of all Research Gate members´ scores globally. He is recipient of Dr. David A Jenkins Award due to his pioneer research and findings of thenardite (Na2SO4) dominance in the salt-affected soils of Punjab, Pakistan in contrast to older hypothesis of halite (NaCl) dominance. He has proved himself as a first practicing Soil Micromorphologist and established the very first soil micromorphology laboratory at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad Pakistan.
Dr. Samira A. S. Omar was appointed by the Kuwait Council of Ministers as the Director General of KISR from 2016-2021. She was responsible for the Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) development and promotion in the country. Currently, Dr. Omar is Principal Research Scientist conducting full time Research & Development (R&D) at KISR. She has led and contributed to 27 research projects to conserve biodiversity, restore ecosystems, and promote sustainable agricultural development in Kuwait. Dr. Samira also led the Soil Survey for the State of Kuwait Project from 1995-1999 and the Kuwait Environmental Remediation Program (KERP) for the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) from 2011-2014. Dr. Omar is affiliated with many international organizations including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Organization for Women in Science in Developing Countries (OWSD) and the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER). Dr. Omar is aResearch Fellow at The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and a has received 21 awards for her scientific achievements. Recently she received the Decoration of OSI (Order of the Star of Italy) at the very high rank of Grand Officer for her collaboration with the Government of Italy in Research & Development (R&D) in 2021. She was also honored the Theodore M. Sperry Award 2019 by SER in September 2019. Dr. Omar holds a PhD degree in wild land resource science from the University of California, Berkeley. She is prolific author of 33 refereed journal papers, 83 conference proceedings and 34 books and chapters. She has been member of Editor Boards of IUCN since 2016.
