Dr. Iaaly is the GIS Center Director and an Assistant professor at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Balamand. Dr. Iaaly earned her Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Balamand. Afterward, she pursued many professional certifications in GIS from ESRI and Lund University. In 2016, Dr. Iaaly earned a research Doctorate in Business Administration from Grenoble Ecole de Management in France. The multidisciplinary nature of her educational background gave her a competitive edge in pursuing research at the intersection of engineering, GIS, and management.

Dr. Iaaly has been working in the field of GIS since 2001. She is an expert in GIS, especially in developing GIS applications for smart government. Additionally, she has extensive experience in remote sensing, field data collection, geo-big data analysis, and smart government. She started her career as the head of the GIS department at the Chamber of Commerce in Tripoli and North Lebanon (CCIAT) where she developed the first GIS system for Tripoli.

Dr. Iaaly teaches a variety of GIS courses and she is a strong advocate of applied research and that education must be directly linked to market and employment needs. thus, she took a proactive approach in bringing real-life projects to the GIS Center to build students’ capacities through hands-on experience in real-life projects. By adopting this approach, many projects were executed that serve the community and build their capacity. She also works closely with NGO’s on subjects related to sustainability and good governance through the use of GIS. She is also involved in many projects related to solid waste management, environmental impact assessment, smart street network, and water pollution analysis. She is currently working on projects with the University of Leeds related to space syntax analysis, peoples movements, and place memories. Dr. Iaaly is also involved in many volunteer works related to open geospatial data for humanitarian response in a time of crisis. She also designed a free Online Proctoring Solution at zero cost during COVID-19 lockdown to help proctor e-assessment. During her work at the GIS Center, she received many international awards of excellence on various projects that she supervised.

The 2020 Young Scholars Award at the 40th ESRI International User Conference in recognition for the exemplary work in geospatial sciences of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Balamand in Lebanon.
The 2017 Young Scholars Award at the 37th ESRI International User Conference in recognition for the exemplary work in geospatial sciences of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Balamand in Lebanon.
The 2016 ESRI Best Project Award at the GIS Day in recognition for
distinguished work in Geographical Information.
2015 IconSWM Excellent Paper Award with Dr. Mervat El Hoz, GIS in Solid Waste Management, the 5th International Conference on Solid Waste Management, India.
2015 CODEG top five doctoral research, GIS in E-Municipalities, Agence Universitaire Francophone.
2012 First Place Paper Conference Award with Dr. Mervat El Hoz, GIS in Environmental Management, 6th International Conference on Environmental Science & Technology 2012, Texas, USA.
The 2005 Special Achievement Award in GIS (SAG) at the 25th ESRI International.
User Conference in recognition for distinguished work in Geographical Information in Lebanon.