His father, Ahmed, was a surgeon and his mother, Sadia, the chair of the pharmacology department at Ain Shams University in Cairo.

He taught at the University of California, Irvine, for nearly twenty years and served as two-term Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE).

His work, research, and mentorship made a pronounced impact on the civil engineering industry and the University of California, Irvine.

As provost, he launched a new strategic academic plan for the university and signed a number of agreements with many national and international entities, including a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with "Ma'an" NGO to help transform slums into sustainable communities and an MOU with the League of Arab States to support the development of teachers' capacity across the Middle East.

[8] In October 2013, The American University in Cairo dedicated the Medhat Haroun Atrium,[9] with key architectural features and an inscribed plaque that reads "In memory of a pioneering engineer, beloved teacher, imaginative administrator, loyal colleague and faithful friend", at the entrance to the School of Sciences and Engineering.

His research efforts were concerned with the theoretical and experimental modeling of the behavior of structural systems under seismic loading, and are published in more than 300 technical papers.