Dr. Karim Altaii joins the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs as a Franklin Fellow in the Office of Iraq Provincial Reconstruction, Transition and Stabilization Staff as Foreign Affairs Officer-Expert to help in capacity building in Iraq, especially in Higher Education. He will also serve with interagency working groups on a variety of issues in support of Bureau interactions with other stakeholders in soliciting input and formulating recommendations.

Dr. Karim Altaii has been a professor with James Madison University, Energy Academic Team in Integrated Science and Technology (ISAT) department, since 2000. Prior to that, he served on the faculty at the University of Turabo School of Engineering in Puerto Rico and the City College of New York, New York. A Magna Cum Laud graduate of the University of Baghdad-School of Engineering in 1980, he holds M.E., M. Phil. and Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering from the City University of New York. He worked three summers with NASA and Sandia National Laboratories in the Wind Energy and Solar Thermal areas. His interests are in international education, engineering education, education in crises-affected countries, fluid-thermal sciences and renewable energy applications. He recently applied for two patents; one of them is related to solar energy tracking to increase the efficiency of photovoltaic cells.