Professor in Abu Dhabi granted UAE citizenship
▶ Chemical engineer praises initiative to give outstanding residents a passport in recognition of their work
A university professor said he was proud to be awarded UAE citizenship for his significant contribution to the country.
Dr Hassan Arafat, director of the Centre for Membranes and Advanced Water Technology at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, was among the first residents to gain citizenship as part of a process announced by the Emirates this year. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, outlined the decision in January to nominate leading figures, including engineers, doctors and scientists, for citizenship in recognition of their outstanding work.
Dr Arafat, 47, who is also Profesor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University, received a UAE passport in March, a few weeks after he was told by phone that he had been nominated based on his scientific achievements.
“I get very emotional thinking about it and there is a feeling of joy,” he told The National.
“It is an honour that has really humbled me. It’s like magic, like a switch you turn on. Suddenly I’m feeling part of something much bigger than my career.”
It is having a positive effect on his work, too.
“It’s quite strange. My mindset even when I come to work has suddenly become different,” said Dr Arafat, a professor of chemical engineering at the university.
“I’m no longer thinking of what I want to achieve that day, I’m thinking about how what I do affects my university and the UAE. This is integrated in all my planning and work on a daily basis.”
Under the initiative, people will retain their original passport and become dual citizens.
“It’s like suddenly having two families you belong to,” Dr Arafat said.
“Just like when you get married you are part of two families and you are very happy to have that.
“The UAE recognises that people have very strong sentimental attachment to their place of birth and place of original citizenship. The fact that they didn’t want people to go through the pain of giving that up is amazing.”
Dr Arafat, from Amman, Jordan, has been working in the UAE since 2010 and lives with his wife and four children, who are thrilled to be able to plan a long-term future in the country they call home.
“We are going through a phase where two children are finishing high school this year and they were uncertain about where they would go to university,” he said.
“We were considering all kinds of options and now it is quite obvious. This is your country, you go to school here.”
Dr Arafat is grateful for the seamless citizenship process, for which residents are nominated and do not need to apply.
“When you apply for citizenship to other countries you have to go through a lot of processes, you have a lot of documents to submit. Here the government has done the thinking and due diligence,” he said.
“They didn’t need me to prepare a dossier and say: ‘This is what I have achieved.’ I don’t know of many governments that take the initiative to select who they want.”
Looking ahead, he has big plans for increased industry links for his research team, which works to create cheap and environmentally friendly water desalination solutions.
The centre he leads studies techniques to tackle water scarcity with home-grown and energy-efficient ideas.
Dr Arafat is designing nanomaterials that reduce the amount of energy and chemicals needed to make seawater potable.
Some desalination plants use chemicals that pollute the environment and his research could have global importance.
“These chemicals end up coming out in wastewater, which most of the time finds its way back into the oceans,” he said.
“So we don’t want that, we want to reduce the use of chemicals as much as possible.”
Dr Arafat received several awards for his work, including the Khalifa Award for Education in 2017. He was also awarded the Mohammed bin Rashid Medal for Scientific Excellence that year.
His international awards include the US Department of Energy Secretary’s Honour Award and the Mondialogo Engineering Award by Daimler and Unesco, the UN’s cultural agency.
Dr Arafat’s 2017 book, Desalination Sustainability: A Technical, Socioeconomic and Environmental Approach, discusses how to achieve water and food security.
He was among the first group of 20 academics who shared a stage with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid and received golden residency visas in 2019.
It is an honour that has really humbled me. Suddenly I’m feeling part of something much bigger than my career
DR HASSAN ARAFAT
Khalifa University