The man who led the UAE’s mission to Mars has been named among the world’s top 50 future leaders by the Project Management Institute, a global non-profit professionals association.
Omran Sharaf, 37, project director of the Emirates Mars Mission, has been leading a team of engineers and scientists since 2014 to make the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission a success.
The spacecraft, called Hope, reached the Martian orbit on February 9 of this year, and has been sending back images and science data on the planet's atmosphere.
Mr Sharaf has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from University of Virginia and a post-graduate degree in science and technology policy from South Korea’s Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
He started working with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in 2006, when it was called the Emirates Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.
Sarah Al Amiri, the Minister of State for Advanced Technology and chairperson of the UAE Space Agency, congratulated her colleague on being named in the 2021 global achievers' list.
“Congratulations, Omran Sharaf, on being selected as one of PMInstitute 2021 Future 50,” she tweeted.
Some of the other professionals in the list include those who work in companies such as Amazon, TikTok, Emaar and Dell.
"With a deep sense of social responsibility, this next generation of leaders are deeply committed to protecting the natural environment, driving diversity and fostering environments of inclusion, and making the world a better place,” Michael DePrisco, chief operating officer of Project Management Institute, said.
"In an exceptionally challenging year, this new generation of leaders have stepped to drive innovation around the globe.”
The complete list is available online.
Images taken by the UAE's Hope probe - in pictures
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The first image of Mars as taken by the UAE's Hope probe, which arrived at the planet on February 9. -
This image taken by the Hope probe's ultraviolet spectrometer (one of its three scientific instruments) shows sunlight reflecting off the extended cloud of atomic hydrogen gas that surrounds the planet Mars. The sunlight is visible only as a dark disk hidden inside the fog of gas. The Emirates Mars Mission team said that no other mission have made such kind of recordings before. -
The UAE's Hope probe captured a high-resolution photo of Mars. -
The Hope probe has shared new images from its journey in the orbit of Mars. -
This image was taken by the infrared spectrometer, another instrument on the Hope probe, from an altitude of about 15,000 kilometres. The image shows the surface temperature (left), centred on the Tharsis region of Mars. Dawn can be seen towards the right side. The low surface temperatures observed are due to the dusty nature of the Martian surface. An elevated nighttime atmospheric temperature at 25 km altitude (right) is also observed over the Tharsis region. -
These images were captured by the eXploration imager, a high-resolution camera on the Hope probe. The red channel clearly shows the dark and light features of the Martian surface, while the water ice clouds stand out in the ultraviolet channel. -
Hope probe sent back an image of the Cerberus Fossae, an area on the planet known for 'Marsquakes'. -
Surface and atmospheric temperature readings collected by the UAE's Hope probe. -
Discrete aurora on Mars captured by UAE's Hope probe -
Discrete aurora on Mars captured by UAE's Hope probe
