Arnon Karnieli received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Arizona, ‎Tucson, in 1988. Since then, he has been the Head of the Remote Sensing Laboratory, at Jacob ‎Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boker ‎Campus, Israel. His main research is focused on the processing of spaceborne, airborne, and ‎ground spectroscopic data of drylands concerning desertification and climate change ‎processes. In this regard, his study’s applications cover dryland ecosystems and agriculture, ‎and to a lesser extent dust/aerosols and coastal water. In 2013, he was ranked ‎among the top 20 researchers in the world in the field of remote sensing discipline by the ‎Scientometrics journal. In 2020, he ‎was ranked by PLoS Biology among the top 2% of scientists worldwide. He is the Israeli Principal ‎Investigator of the recreantly launched Vegetation and Environmental New Micro Spacecraft ‎‎(VENμS) mission.