Carole Abourached

Dr. Carole Abourached is a Senior Project Management Specialist at RTI with a decade of experience in international development and technical expertise in the water, environment, and agriculture sectors.

Currently, she leads an RTI-funded research and development (R&D) project on enablers and barriers of constructed wetlands and supports proposals development and USAID projects implementation in the WASH sector.

Prior to joining RTI in 2021, Dr. Abourached managed McGovern-Dole projects, implemented in Mauritania and Senegal, that integrated food security, WASH, health, and education components. She also supported WASH projects focused on the elimination of open defection and the improvement of sanitation and hygiene status in Benin and Madagascar and evaluated WASH conditions in healthcare facilities in Zambia using an innovative tool developed by Emory University. Additionally, Dr. Abourached led testing on water treatment technologies in Kenya, Mali, and Rwanda in collaboration with the private sector.

For her PhD work, Dr. Abourached conducted research on Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology that treats wastewater and generates electricity simultaneously. The water can then be reused in agriculture or industrial settings, and the technology plays a role in climate change adaption, and mitigation by allowing water reuse and producing clean energy respectively.  Her research experience also includes work on a website that provides irrigation scheduling to farmers facing climate change and water scarcity.

Dr. Abourached work experience spans Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She is fluent in English, French, and Arabic, with an upper intermediate level of Spanish.