DARWISH M.K.F. AL QUBAISI was born in 1953 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He received his higher technical education in Electrical Engineering from the United Kingdom where he received his B.Sc. (Engineering) and Ph.D. degrees. For over two decades since 1976 he was with the Water and Electricity Department (WED), Government of Abu Dhabi, in various positions including Director General, Power & Desalination (P&D) Plants, directing all aspects of activity including planning, development, operation and maintenance of P&D plants. He was responsible for the continuing development of the P&D facilities over the years, the capacity of which at present has reached 3000 MW and 200MGD respectively. He was actively engaged in research and development in an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice, particularly in the aspect of plant modeling, simulation, optimization, control, fault diagnosis and care. He has authored/coauthored over 40 papers in the fields of power and desalination, water resources and environment. He was leading a large team of internationally renowned experts, in a monumental project –The Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), as its Editor-in-Chief and Co-chairman of the UNESCO-EOLSS Joint Committee.
Encyclopedia of Desalination and Water Resources (DESWARE) appeared in November 2000 as another unique online publication in the field of desalination and water resources. All these have been published under the auspices of the UNESCO.
Our Fragile World (OFW): Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development, Volumes I and II, 2001, ISBN: 0 9534944-7-0, 2263pp.
Three at the Johannesburg Summit: Knowledge For Sustainable Development (KSD): An Insight into the Encyclopedia of Life support Systems, Volumes I, II and III, 2002, ISBN: 0 9542989-0-X, 3490pp.
He has chaired technical sessions in several conferences both at home and abroad, and was the Technical Program Chairman of the IDA World Conference on Desalination and Water Sciences, Abu Dhabi , 18-24 November 1995.
The awards he received include: 1989 Rashid Award for Academic Excellence, 1999 International Desalination Association award, Environment Prize of UAE, and UNESCO Medal for dissemination of knowledge in the field of Nanoscience and Technologies all over the world through EOLSS.
Dr. Al Gobaisi was a Chartered Engineer in the U.K.; Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (U.K.); Fellow of the Inst. of Measurement and Control (UK); Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (UK); Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Member, Operations Research Society of America; Member, Institute of Forecasters; Member Instrument Society of America; and Member, International Desalination Association, where served also on its Board of Directors. He has been recently elected to the Royal Belgian Academy of Overseas Sciences as Corresponding Member and to the World Academy of Arts and Sciences (WAAS) as Fellow.