The CLI is pleased to announce the hiring of KAUST's newest faculty member: Yoshihide Wada. Prof. Wada will be joining KAUST in the fall, and will have an academic home within the Climate and Livability Initiative. He brings with him a wealth of experience in Water-Food-Energy Nexus, System Science, Food Security, Hydrology, Groundwater Resources, Climate Change, Environment and Earth Systems Science and Stakeholder Engagment. 

At KAUST, Prof. Yoshihide Wada will lead his team with three pillars: 

1) Systems Analysis Methods: exploring innovative developments for integrated bio-economic and water-food-energy modeling, network modeling, forward looking scenario development, risk and vulnerability assessment, dynamic systems modeling and analyzing extreme destabilizing events and tipping points in society and nature, from local to global levels.

2) Scientific Foresight - Translating Research to Action: fostering relationships with policymakers and to establish a policy dialog, building a stronger capability in linking the research and policy communities.

3) Systems Capacity Building: building capacity in the context of activities that strengthen the knowledge dissemination, abilities, and skills of researchers to conduct systems analysis.

Before joining KAUST, Prof. Yoshihide Wada was the Director of the IIASA’s Biodiversity and Natural Resources (BNR) Program. Currently he also has a joint appointment as a Chair Professor of Global Water and Food Security at the Department of Physical Geography, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. 

Prof. Wada also has the following awards:

- 2022 Rising Star of Science Award by Research.com (ranked 13 world, 1 in Austria)

- 2022 Highly cited researcher (top 1%) in two fields (environment and ecology, and geosciences) by Web of Science

- 2021 Highly cited researcher (top 1%) by Web of Science                      

- 2021 The Reuters Hot List of the World’s Top 1000 Climate Scientists (ranked 301)   

- 2020 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fellow    

- 2020 American Geophysical Union (AGU) James B. Macelwane Medal 

- 2020 Association of American Publishers' 2020 PROSE Awards Category Excellence – Environmental Science for the UNEP GEO-6 Report as contributed as the Lead Author (Freshwater)                  

- 2020 Highly cited researcher (top 1%) in two fields (environment and ecology, and geosciences) by Web of Science

- 2019 Highly cited researcher (top 1%) in two fields (environment and ecology, and geosciences) by Web of Science

- 2018 Highly cited researcher (top 1%) by Web of Science

- 2018 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Hydrologic Science Early Career Award

- 2018 European Geoscience Union (EGU) Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists

- 2018 The Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT), The Young Scientists’ Prize

- 2018 The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (MEXT)/National Institute of Science and Technology Policy NICE STEP (NISTEP) Award 2017 

- 2017 Dutch Hydrological Society Hydrology Prize 2013-2015 (NHV Hydrologieprijs 2013-2015)

- 2016 Editors' Citations for Excellence in Refereeing Cited by Paul Dirmeyer for Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES)    2016 Editors' Citations for Excellence in Refereeing Cited by Alberto Montanari (Editor in Chief) for Water Resources Research (WRR)     

- 2012 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Horton (Hydrology) Research Grant (US$ 10,000)