Essam Heggy is a Planetary Scientist at the Viterbi School of Engineering in the University of Southern California and a ROSETTA Co-Investigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Heggy obtained both Master and PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics with a major in Space and Planetary sciences respectively in 1999 and 2002 with distinguished honors from the Sorbonne-UPMC Paris University in France. His research interests in space and planetary geophysics aims to understand water and ice distributions in Earth's arid regions, Mars, the Moon, Icy satellites and Near Earth Objects. Heggy strongly believe that science is the path forward peace and tolerance in the MENA area and served in several advisory roles for international agencies supporting educational and scientific reforms.