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Education and Research

UOP supports initiatives and activities that seek to preserve and sustain the environment inside and outside the university's campus and provide expertise and possible resources to reduce hazardous pollutants emissions in order to achieve the university's vision and mission. The university encourages initiatives and research projects that promote environmental awareness and address environmental problems to develop solutions for such problems. The regulations issued and implemented by the deanship of scientific research and graduate studies set the relevance of proposed research projects to environment, water, and energy to top the evaluation criteria. This step was taken to encourage faculty members to focus on addressing sustainability related challenges in their research work and ultimately develop solutions for such challenges.

Water and Environment Research Laboratory was established at the UOP Faculty of Engineering by the end of 2021, and was funded by UOP Deanship of Scientific Research to find solutions to the environmental problems and the water sector challenges. Since its establishment, the research laboratory team has completed a number of projects, namely:

UOP-funded research project on controlling water quality by means of remote sensing (Research No. 2019/7/3 and funding amounted to 16,000 JOD – 22,857 $). A set of the mathematical models using the satellite images to determine the surface water quality in a number of the dams in HKJ. Such models are considered one of the most significant tools for managing and conserving the water resources.

Furthermore, the research laboratory team has completed a UOP-funded study on monitoring the impacts of the urbanization and urban environment in Jordan on the evolution of the phenomenon of the heat islands (Research No. 2/7/2019 and funding amounted to 6,000 JOD – 8,680 $).

Meanwhile, a UOP-funded research project on the means for generating water from the atmospheric vapor. The UOP funding amounted to 9,000 JOD – 12,857 $.

A research project is currently being implemented in cooperation with researchers from Bradford University at the United Kingdom (UK). The Joint Research Team develops an effective substance for removing the high toxicity heavy metals from water. This project is funded by the Royal Engineering Academy in UK under the Newton Khalidi Program. The total cost of the research project is £124,000. The researchers have successfully developed effective organic filter for removing the high toxicity heavy metals from Water in cooperation with a Jordanian company specializing in manufacturing filters.

The university organized a symposium dedicated to subjects relevant to adaptation strategies to climate change impacts with more focus on the case of Jordan. This unique event aimed to promote interactions, to motivate discussions and to encourage collaborations among the global community on adaptation strategies to buffer climate change threats. An exchange of information about different countries experiences, which enhance present sustainable practices, is crucial to develop present and future response action plans to climate change impacts. Participants from different local ministries, municipalities and relevant NGOs took part in this symposium.

Furthermore, students' engagement in sustainability related projects is vastly important. For example, students annually participate in the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED). Well-organized students' clubs were also established under the supervision of the Deanship of Student Affairs; some of which are concerned with sustainability related activities. Two of the most active ones are Environment Club, and Chemistry and Environment Club, whose activities encourage and support sustainability culture, spirit of volunteering, public services and teamwork in sustainability-related fields. As of 2022, in order to reach a better coordination of student initiatives and activities related to sustainability and environment, the two previously mentioned clubs were merged in a single body named Students' Sustainability and Environment Club (SSEC).

In addition, many research papers were published in the areas of sustainability, environment, water, and energy. Below is a list of some of selected papers.

Nidal M. Hussein, Mohammed N. Assaf and Suhaib Abohussein (2022) “Sentinel 2 Analysis of Turbidity Retrieval Models in Inland Water Bodies: The Case study of Jordanian Dams". Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, (Special Issue – 2022), 1-14. DOI: 10.1002/cjce.24526.
Nidal M. Hussein, Mohammed N. Assaf and Suhaib Abohussein (2021) Application of Sentinel 2 to Evaluate Colored Dissolved Organic Matter Algorithms for Inland Water Bodies in Jordan, 9th Jordan International Chemical Engineering Conference (JICHEC9), 12-14 October, 2021. Amman, Jordan. (ISBN: 2020/3/1033, ISSN: 2707- 7942).
Ziad Al-Ghazawi, Nidal M. Hussein, Zaid Abdelkhaleq (2021) Impacts of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) on the Trends of COVID 19 Pandemic in selected MENA Region Countries9th Jordan International Chemical Engineering Conference (JICHEC9), 12-14 October, 2021. Amman, Jordan. (ISBN: 2020/3/1033, ISSN: 2707- 7942).
Nidal M. Hussein, Mohammed N. Assaf (2020), "Multispectral Remote Sensing Utilization for Monitoring Chlorophyll-a Levels in Inland Water Bodies in Jordan", The Scientific World Journal, vol. 2020, Article ID 5060969, 14 pages, 2020.
Nidal M. Hussein (2016), Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Potential of Jordan's Utility Scale Wind and Solar Projects, Jordan Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 2016.
Nidal M. Hussein (2015) Study of the Utilization of PV Technology in Mosques in Jordan: Case study, 1st Isra International Civil Engineering Conference, Amman, Jordan, (ISBN 978-9957-8728-0-9).
Albostami A., Wu ZJ. and Cunningham LS. 2020. Elastic Response of Cross-Laminated Timber Panels using Finite Element and Analytical Techniques. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering.
Albostami A., Wu ZJ. and Cunningham LS. 2019. Assessment of Cross-Laminated Timber Panels by the State Space Approach. Advances in Structural Engineering.
Albostami A., Wu ZJ. and Cunningham LS. 2017. Structural behaviour of Cross-Laminated Timber panels by the State Space Approach. International Journal of Computational Methods and Experimental Measurements. 5(6), 834-846.
Abed, A., and Al-Jokhadar, A. (2022). Common spaces as a tool for social sustainability. Journal of Housing & the Built Environment, 37: 399-421. (ISSN: 1573-7772). (DOI: 10.1007/s10901-021-09843-y). Publisher: Springer, Netherlands.
Al-Jokhadar, A. and Jabi, W. (2020). Spatial Reasoning as a Syntactic Method for Programming Socio-Spatial Parametric Grammar for Vertical Residential Buildings. Architectural Science Review, 63(2): 135-153. (ISSN: 0003-8628). (DOI: 10.1080/00038628.2019.1646631). Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd., United Kingdom.
Al-Jokhadar, A. (2019). The innovation of a parametric tool for the design of socially sustainable apartment buildings in hot-arid regions. The Second Balqa' International Engineering Conference (BIEC 2019): Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation. Page 24. Organized by: Jordan Engineers Association, the Dead Sea, Jordan, 3-5 December 2019.
Al-Jokhadar, A. (2018). Towards a Socio-Spatial Parametric Grammar for Tall Residential Buildings in Hot-Arid Regions - Learning from the Vernacular Model of the Middle East and South Africa. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University, UK.
Al-Jokhadar, A. and Jabi, W. (2017). Vernacular neighbourhoods as models for socially‐sustainable vertical cities: a computational approach. Proceedings of the International Conference for Sustainable Design of the Built Environment (SDBE 2017). Organized by: University of East London, London, UK, 20-21 December 2017, pp. 76-87. (ISBN: 978-1-9997971-0-2).
Al-Jokhadar, A. and Jabi, W. (2017). Applying the vernacular model to high-rise residential development in the Middle East and North Africa. Archnet-IJAR (International Journal of Architectural Research), 11(2), July 2017, pp. 175-189. (ISSN: 2631-6862). Publisher: Emerlad Group Publishing Ltd., Qatar.
Al-Jokhadar, A. and Jabi, W. (2017). Qualitative representation and spatial reasoning in a rule-based computational design model. In: Spaeth, B. and Jabi, W. (eds.). The Virtual and the Physical: between the Representation of Space and the Making of Space - Proceedings of the 5th eCAADe Regional International Symposium, pp. 35-44. (ISBN 978-1-899895-26-7). Cardiff University, UK, 26-28 April 2017. Organized by: eCAADe Education and Research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe, Brussels, and the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Wales, the United Kingdom.
Al-Jokhadar, A. and Jabi, W. (2016). Humanising the computational design process: integrating parametric models with qualitative dimensions. In: Al-Attili, A., Karandinou, A. and Daley, B. (eds). Parametricism vs. Materialism: Evolution of Digital Technologies for Development – Proceedings of the 8th International Conference of the Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD-2016), pp. 9-17. (ISBN 978-0-995569-10-2). Organized by SOAS University of London, London, UK, 7-8 November 2016. London: Imperial House Publishers.
Al-Jokhadar, A. and Jabi, W. (2016). Enhancing social-cultural sustainability in tall buildings: a trace from vernacular houses. In: Wood, A., Malott, D. and He, J. (eds.). Cities to Megacities: Shaping Dense Vertical Urbanism - A collection of state-of-the-art, multi-disciplinary papers on urban design, sustainable cities, and tall buildings - Proceedings of the CTBUH 2016 International Conference. China, 16–21 October 2016, Volume 1, Chapter 9, pp. 633-641. Chicago: Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. (ISBN 978-0-939493-51-7).