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Christos Fountoukis
Senior Scientist
Educational Qualifications
PhD in Chemical Engineering
MS in Chemical Engineering
Entity
Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute
Divison
Sustainable Development
Biography
Christos Fountoukis received his PhD from the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering of the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, U.S. in 2007. He has been a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow from 2008-2012 and a Project Scientist from 2012-2015 with the University of Patras and the FORTH research institute in Greece. Over the last 20 years he has participated in 15 large-scale integrated projects of the EU and the USA. He has more than 50 journal publications, h-index=30 and 4,304 citations (as of August 2022).
At QEERI, Christos is a Technical Team Leader for the atmospheric research modeling team within the Air Quality & Climate Change research program under the Environment and Sustainability Center. His research focuses on the application of air quality and climate models in the greater region of the Middle East with a special focus on the State of Qatar. He is also interested in atmospheric dust and solar energy forecasting and their effects on PV systems and solar power generation potential. Working closely with the measurement groups, the goal is to better understand the local and regional atmospheric conditions in order to identify efficient mitigation strategies toward a sustainable environment.
PhD in Chemical Engineering
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
2007
MS in Chemical Engineering
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA
2005
BS (Diploma) in Chemical Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
2002
- Atmospheric chemistry, air quality modeling and forecasting - early warning systems
- Climate modeling in the greater area of Middle East
- Dust storm modeling and operational forecasting in the greater area of Middle East
- Energy-Meteorology, aerosol – radiation interactions, prediction and forecasting of solar radiation for solar energy applications, atmospheric particle deposition on photovoltaic plants, UV index forecasting
- Atmospheric dispersion of radionuclides from nuclear power plant accidents - early warning systems
Senior Scientist
Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar
2015 - Present
Adj. Professor (Joint Appointment)
Division of Sustainable Development, College of Science & Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Doha, Qatar.
2017 - 2018
Instructor
Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on edX platform: Solar Resource Assessment in Desert Climates.
2019 – Present
Project Scientist
Laboratory of Air Quality Studies, School of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece.
2012 - 2015
Visiting Scientist - IASS Fellow
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (JASS), Cluster: Sustainable Interactions with the Atmosphere, Potsdam, Germany.
2012
Post-doctoral (Marie Curie) Research Fellow
Institute of Chemical Engineering Sciences, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Patras, Greece.
2008 - 2012
Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and School of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
2003 - 2007
- Fountoukis, C., Y. Mohieldeen, L. Pomares, I. Gladich, A. Siddique, A. Skillern, M.A. Ayoub, Assessment of High-resolution Local Emissions and Land-use in Air Quality Forecasting at an Urban, Coastal, Desert Environment, Aerosol and Air Quality Research, 22 (6), 2022.
- Roshan, D.R., M. Koc, A. Abdallah, L. Martin-Pomares, R. Isaifan, C. Fountoukis, UV-Index Forecasting under the Influence of Desert Dust: Evaluation against Surface and Satellite-Retrieved Data, Atmosphere, 11 (1), 96, 2020.
- Fountoukis, C., H. Harshvardhan, I. Gladich, L. Ackermann, M.A. Ayoub, Anatomy of a severe dust storm in the Middle East: Impacts on aerosol optical properties and radiation budget, Aerosol and Air Quality Research, 20, 155-165, 2020.
- Al-Thani, H., M. Koç, C. Fountoukis, R.J. Isaifan, Evaluation of particulate matter emissions from non-passenger diesel vehicles in Qatar, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 70 (2), 228-242, 2020
- Roshan, D.R., M. Koc, R. Isaifan, M.Z. Shahid, C. Fountoukis, Aerosol Optical Thickness over Large Urban Environments of the Arabian Peninsula—Speciation, Variability, and Distributions, Atmosphere, 10 (5), 228, 2019.
- Fountoukis, C., B. Figgis, M.A. Ayoub, L. Ackermann, Effects of atmospheric dust deposition on solar PV energy production in a desert environment, Solar Energy, 164, 94–100, 2018.
- Fountoukis, C., L. Pomares, D. Perez-Astudillo, D. Bachour, and I. Gladich, Simulating global horizontal irradiance in the Arabian Peninsula: Sensitivity to explicit treatment of aerosols, Solar Energy, 163, 347–355, 2018.
- Fountoukis, C., M.A. Ayoub, L. Ackermann, D. Perez-Astudillo, D. Bachour, I. Gladich and R.D. Hoehn, Vertical ozone concentration profiles in the Arabian Gulf region during summer and winter: Sensitivity of WRF-Chem to planetary boundary layer schemes, Aerosol and Air Quality Research, 18: 1183–1197, 2018.
- Fountoukis, C., L. Ackermann, M.A. Ayoub, I. Gladich, R. D. Hoehn, and A. Skillern, Impact of atmospheric dust emission schemes on dust production and concentration over the Arabian Peninsula, Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, 2:115, 2016.
- 2008 - 2012, Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-3-IRG).
- 2003 - 2007, Graduate Research/Teaching Assistantship for Ph.D studies in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.
- 2007, Honorable mention in the AICHE (American Institute for Chemical Engineers) graduate student paper contest for outstanding graduate student contributions to environmental protection through chemical engineering.
- 2004, Recipient of a graduate studies scholarship from the Gerondelis Foundation, MA, USA for outstanding MS thesis.