Dr. Jun Abrajano is the Chief of Staff of the President of KAUST, and the immediate past director of the KAUST Office of Sponsored Research. He came to KAUST from the US National Science Foundation, where he was division director of Earth Sciences and acting deputy assistant director of the GEO Directorate.

Prior to joining NSF, Dr. Abrajano was a professor and director of earth and environmental sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, professor and chair of environmental sciences at Memorial University in Canada, and senior scientist at the Chemical Technology Division of Argonne National Laboratory.

Dr. Abrajano received his PhD in earth and planetary sciences from Washington University and he is a Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.