Raha Hakimdavar

Dr. Raha Hakimdavar is Senior Advisor to the Dean of Georgetown University Earth Commons and the Dean of Georgetown University in Qatar in the areas of climate, environment, and innovation. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Non-Resident Fellow at the Middle East Institute, and the Founder and CEO of Zyon Space, a climate-tech startup that develops climate adaptation solutions using the vantage point of space.

Dr. Hakimdavar was previously the Director of Space Sciences at Ball Aerospace, where she led business strategy and engagements with NASA and the broader space sciences community. She served in civil servant appointments with the USDA and NASA prior to this. At the USDA Forest Service, she was the national watershed program hydrologist and acting national program lead for remote sensing and geospatial analysis research, successfully leading initiatives and securing funds to integrate satellite data into forest level decision-making. Her leadership as a Presidential Management Fellow at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center led to a revision of UN Environment’s reporting methodology for the Sustainable Development Goal on Water and Sanitation and creation of a US Government wide global hydrology model for water security that is currently being operated by the US Air Force. She has served as a technical consultant for UN Environment, the World Bank, and USAID on disaster risk reduction, water, and forestry projects for over a decade.

Dr. Hakimdavar holds a BS in civil engineering from California State Polytechnic University, and an MS and PhD in hydrology from Columbia University. She served as a Fulbright Fellow in Water Management in the Netherlands and was awarded the 2018 KLM Sustainability and Innovation award for her efforts.