Bringing investigative, scientific and humanitarian perspectives together

Dr Tareq Omairi is a crime prevention and criminal justice specialist whose work focuses on investigative leadership, open source intelligence and institutional capacity building. He currently serves as a Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Cairo, Egypt, where he supports multi country efforts to strengthen investigations, forensic services and justice institutions in response to organized crime and terrorism.

Before joining UNODC, Tareq worked with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). He first supported forensic evidence work in Iraq, then moved to The Hague in the Netherlands as Learning and Development Manager and Project Manager. There he helped establish the Wim Kok Center for Excellence and Learning, which supports governments and civil society in addressing the issue of missing persons through training, guidance and collaborative learning.

Tareq brings together a scientific, investigative and educational background. He holds a PhD in Astrobiology from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Fellow of the British Higher Education Academy (FHEA). He is also pursuing an MA in International Relations with Liverpool John Moores University. Over more than 15 years he has designed and led capacity building initiatives that sit at the intersection of investigations, policy and practice.

His professional recognitions include awards and fellowships from NASA, Santander Bank Group, the Ministry of Higher Education in Iraq and the Worldwide Universities Network. He is a rostered expert in OSINT forensics with Justice Rapid Response, shortlisted as a due diligence expert in the INTERPOL roster, and a member of the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab network as a Digital Sherlock in the 2024 cohort.

Tareq is based in Sheffield in the United Kingdom and has been stationed in Iraq, the Netherlands and Egypt. This international experience gives him a practical understanding of how investigators, policy makers, technical experts and humanitarian actors work, and how to help them collaborate in real cases. His approach is grounded in human centered design, clear methods and calm, inclusive leadership.