Karin Aggestam

CMES Director and MECW Coordinator

Call for Applications: CMES Writing Retreats Spring 2022

CMES supports writing retreats on Middle East research with the aim to finalise an article, book chapter, edited volume or a book for publication in peer-reviewed outlets. CMES offers office space and modern research facilities in a stimulating work environment on historic premises. Three writing retreats will be granted during the spring of 2022. Applications are open to individual researchers that hold doctoral degrees and are employed by Lund University. Application Deadline: November 30, 2021

Visit our website for more information, including submission instructions and conditions for research funding.

CMES Researcher Hossein Hashemi Promoted to Associate Professor

CMES researcher Hossein Hashemi has recently been promoted to Associate Professor (Docent) at the Division of Water Resources Engineering, Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University. Hossein received his Ph.D. in the field of Water Resources Engineering from Lund University in 2014.  After his Ph.D., he served as postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Groundwater Evaluation and Management, Department of Geophysics at Stanford University, USA (2015-2017). Upon his return to Sweden, he was employed as Associate Senior Lecturer at Water Resources Engineering, Lund University. His research interests primarily lie in the area of remote sensing, climate change, and surface water and groundwater management in arid regions. Hossein is project leader of a new MECW project on AI and dust-storm in the Middle East.

CMES Seed Funding Granted to Sadegh Jamali and Hakim Abdi

Sadegh Jamali (Technology and Society, LTH Lund University) and Hakim Abdi (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science, CEC Lund University) have received seed funding from CMES to initiate research and prepare an application for national and international research calls. 

There is a large gap in Middle East research that is caused by the lack of a detailed and up-to-date Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) map of the region. Therefore, the overall objective of Sadegh and Hakim's project is to fill this gap through the development of a LULC dataset using a repeatable ML-based framework with the large pool of readily available EO data. The CMES research initiation funding is thus for a project on High-Resolution Mapping of the Middle East using satellite observations from Sentinel missions in a machine learning framework (HiMMEL).

November 11: Digital Communication and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

CMES Research Seminar with Lisa Strömbom (Department of Political Science) on weaving interventionist and transactional modes of knowledge production in peace research in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

November 15: SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Strategic Research Area (SRA) Workshop about access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, arranged by the SRAs NanoLund, ELLIIT and BECC. Registration deadline: November 8

November 25: Social and Environmental Impacts Across Contexts - Bringing in Global Perspectives

Strategic Research Area (SRA) Workshop about grounding estimations of impacts in local conditions when writing research proposals. Arranged by the SRAs MECW and EXODIAB. Registration deadline: November 18

November 25: AI in the Service of Socio-Politically Adapted Sustainable Dust-Storm Control in the Middle East

CMES Research Seminar with Hossein Hashemi (Water Resource Engineering), Seyed Amir Naghibi (Water Resource Engineering), Sara Brogaard (LUCSUS), Ali Mansourian (Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science) and Pengziang Zhao (Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science).