About the Author:

Salah M. El-Haggar has more than 30 years' experience in Energy and Sustainable Development consulting and university teaching. He is presently the Professor of Energy and Sustainable Development, Mechanical Engineering Department at the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt. He has been a visiting Professor at Washington State University and at University of Idaho, USA. Dr. El-Haggar's has 24 Academic Honors, grants and awards. He received the outstanding teaching award from AUC in 1995 as well as a number of outstanding trustees' awards. In 2009, he received excellence in Research and creative endeavour award from AUC. In 2012, Dr. he received Provost Award in recognition of the innovations in Environmental Science and Engineering as well as Distinguished Service Award of 25 years of services at AUC. Dr. El-Haggar has 220 scientific publications in Environmental, Sustainable Development and Energy fields, 53 invited presentations, 57 technical reports, 16 books, and 15 book chapters. He developed a new concept to assess the life cycle of a product according to cradle-to-cradle concept instead of cradle-to-grave concept used worldwide until today. This concept was developed based on 30 years of intensive and continual effort at AUC and was documented in two books. The first book published in 2007 by Elsevier Academic Press is entitled Sustainable Industrial Design and Waste Management: Cradle-to-Cradle for Sustainable Development. The second book published in 2015 by AUC Press is entitled Sustainability and Innovation: The Next Global Industrial Revolution. These two books are the first books worldwide to demonstrate the concept of cradle-to-cradle to protect not only the environment but also the natural resources in terms of business plans. Dr. El-Haggar developed the first and the only Sustainable Development labs worldwide located in Mechanical Engineering Department at AUC.

Aliaa Samaha is dedicated to increasing knowledge and awareness about the environment and associated challenges through her unique combination of environmental experience coupled with her extensive educational experience. Aliaa received her undergraduate degree in Construction Engineering and MSc in Environmental Engineering from The American University in Cairo, Egypt. She received her MA in Secondary Science Education from The College of New Jersey, USA. Aliaa is a Registered Environmental Assessor in the State of California, a member of the Northern California Chapter of the Academy of Certified Hazardous Materials Managers, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and a member of the Syndicate of Professional Engineers in Cairo. Aliaa is also a certified teacher in the state of New Jersey. She has twofold experience in the environmental field, having worked in Egypt both on the governmental and on the consultancy sides of it. She worked with the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency in Cairo as an Industrial Pollution Specialist in the Egyptian Pollution Abatement Project. She also worked with Chemonics, an international consultancy, on over 30 environmental audits of factories in the food, pharmaceutical, chemical and metallurgical industry. Her work included making recommendations to improve industrial compliance to environmental standards. Aliaa gained extensive engineering experience working with the environmental consultancy, ATC Associates inc. in Pleasanton, California on managing projects of site investigation, monitoring and remediation projects. Aliaa routinely prepared Phase I and II Environmental Site Assessment reports and was part of the team handling the closure activities for a landfill facility, Geothermal Inc. Landfill, Lake Country, CA, used to dispose of geothermal wastes. She was involved in environmental monitoring during construction at the Emeryville Mall Brownfield site in Oakland, California. Aliaa currently teaches at the Graduate School of Education in the American University in Cairo at their STEAM Professional Educator's Diploma. She also shares her environmental experience at Hayah International Academy by teaching an Environmental Systems and Societies course in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. She aspires to combine her background in both the fields of environment and education to provide support in developing the necessary skills and expertise to address environmental challenges, and fostering attitudes, motivations, and commitments to make informed decisions and take responsible action for sustainable development.