Chaham Alalouch

Biography

Dr. Chaham Alalouch is an academic, scholar, and architectural engineer with a background in urbanism. He writes and speaks regularly on how to improve people’s quality of life through sustainable and smart design and construction of our buildings and cities. He believes that the built environment is made for people and it should be designed and constructed as such.

He is Editor-in-Chief of the refereed journal “Open House International”, Associated Editor of “ICE Urban Design and Planning” refereed journal, member of the Editorial Review Board of “Archnet-IJAR” refereed journal, and one of the editors of the Springer referred book series Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Dr. Chaham holds a Ph.D. from Heriot-Watt University, UK; and a PG Dip. in architectural design and a Bachelor's in architectural engineering from the University of Aleppo, Syria. He is currently teaching and researching at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman in the capacity of Associate Professor, having previously researched and taught at universities in the UK and Syria. There, he also worked in several architectural consultancy firms and in two European commission-funded projects.

Dr. Chaham’s research, teaching, and services were recognized for excellence. He is the winner of the Outstanding Reviewer Award 2021 by Emerald Publishing, UK; the National Research Award 2020 by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation in Oman; the “Distinguished Academician Award” by Sultan Qaboos University 2019; the winner of the Highly Commended Award 2010 by the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence, UK; and the winner of MacFarlane Prize 2009 by Heriot-Watt University. His research was featured in Elsevier newsletter, Elsevier Engineering Twitter account, The Australian Architectural Science Association newsletter, the Spanish online magazine “The Smart City Journal”, and the Omani “Scientific Insights” newsletters. In addition, one of his research papers was selected by Elsevier to join RELX Sustainable Development Goals Resource database. He received several appreciation letters from Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellors, and Deans for his services. He taught 15 different undergraduate and postgraduate courses and supervised and co-supervised a number of MSc and Ph.D. students.

Dr. Chaham has published a large number of outputs in the international refereed press including high-impact journals, conferences, a book, three edited books, and a number of technical reports; covering a wide range of topics related to his broad area of interest. He has also published in engineering and architecture design pedagogy.

Dr. Chaham held invited talks and keynote speeches at international conferences in Spain and Italy; and many other talks, workshops, and presentations at several international, regional, and local conferences and events. He acts as a reviewer for a range of reputable and high-impact journals, and he reviewed for more than 18 international conferences from China to the UK. He also reviewed book proposals, research grant proposals, and reports for local authorities. In addition, he chaired several publicity and outreach committees for conference organizing and acted as a vice-chair and a member of the scientific committee at other conferences.

He was ranked the 1st researcher in Oman, and researcher #62 in Asia in "Architecture"; and researcher #16 in the Arab League in “Art, Design and Architecture” by the Alper-Doger Scientific Index 2021. Based on SciVal data for the period 2018-2021, 27.3% of his publications were among the top 10% most cited worldwide, 54.5% among the top 10% most viewed publications worldwide, and 55.6% of his publications were published in the top 10% journals. As for the research fund, Dr. Chaham awarded total research grants and project fund, as a PI and Co-I, of 872,861 $ from internal and external sources.