Himanshu Mishra is a scientist-entrepreneur at KAUST working at the intersection of physical chemistry and sustainability. He leads a research program focused on solving urgent food–water–climate challenges in arid regions. His group has developed award-winning technologies—CarboSoil™ and SandX™—that convert organic waste into powerful soil amendments to boost nutrient retention, slash irrigation losses, and sequester carbon in degraded soils. With support from KAUST, Aramco, King Salman Park, NEOM, and others, these innovations are being deployed at scale. In 2023, he co-founded Terraxy LLC to advance desert rehabilitation and circular economy goals across giga-projects. Mishra has secured over $7M in competitive research funding, authored 50+ peer-reviewed papers, and mentored a new generation of innovators. His work has been recognized globally—at the World Economic Forum, Geneva Inventions, Prototypes for Humanity, COP16, and by CNN—as a model of how translational science can address climate resilience and food–water security in drylands.

• Desert landscaping, greening, and agriculture with maximum resource-use efficiency
• CarboSoil™ synthesis from poultry manure, date palm leaves, etc. – pyrolysis, pre- & post-treatment, materials characterization, field trials, and piloting (TRL9).
• CarboSoil-based slow-release fertilizers to reduce leaching and N-volatilization.
• SandX mulch for enhanced water-use efficiency: mechanisms, field trials, & piloting.
• Smart irrigation monitoring in beautiful arid-lands (SIMBA) for off-the-grid locations.
• Interfacial phenomena: microdroplet chemistry, wetting & capillarity, soil physics