Dr. Essam Heggy is a Research Scientist at the Microwave Systems, Sensors and Imaging Lab (MiXIL), at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, and at the Rosetta mission project office at the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Heggy obtained both MSc and PhD respectively in 1999 and 2002 on Terrestrial and Planetary Radar Studies with distinguished honors from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. His research focuses on understanding water evolution in Earth’s arid environments as well as planetary surfaces using radar surface and subsurface characterization methods. He is currently a member of the science team of the MARSIS instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter (2003-present), the Mini-SAR experiment aboard Chandrayaan-1, the Mini-RF experiment on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (2008-present) and the CONSERT radar experiment aboard the Rosetta mission (2004-present). Heggy is the Principal Investigator of a sounding radar mission concept currently under formulation, that aims to determine the thickness of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and the occurrence and spatial distribution of shallow aquifers in the most arid desertic regions on Earth and how both systems respond to climatic and anthropogenic stresses. Heggy is also a contributing scientist to several proposed planetary and terrestrial radar imaging and soundings experiments and participated in several NASA & ESA missions concepts designs.