Waleed Abdalati held the position of NASA Chief Scientist from 3 January 2011 through December 2012.

[1] Abdalati was named to this position on 13 December 2010 by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

[2] Abdalati previously served NASA as Head of Cryospheric Sciences at Goddard Space Flight Center between January 2004 and June 2008.

[3][5] In his doctoral research, Abdalati developed an algorithm to use the ratio of two microwave bands of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) sensor aboard Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) vehicles to remotely detect changes in the spatial extent of the Greenland ice sheet's annual melt.

[6] Abdalati is seconded to NASA from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he is Director of the Earth Science and Observation Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences[7] and associate professor in the Department of Geography.