Gaathier has a background in Water and Sustainability and consults, trains and advises in these arenas. He has received extensive technical training in Computational Geoscience, with a focus on Hydrology, in Germany and Morocco, the latter sponsored through the International Atomic Energy Agency. Dr. Mahed has worked in gold, uranium and coal mining as well as on shale gas research. He has served in his capacity as a consultant on various projects in the Earth Sciences for government, industry and academia. Some of the major companies he has completed worked for include SABIC, City of Cape Town and the Water Research Commission. Gaathier has also tenured as COO for a diversified energy startup firm which ventured into Biofuel, Shale Gas and Drilling.He has served on technical panels in South Africa to help water research projects focus on sustainable development. At the Water Research Commission of South Africa, for example, he was involved in a pilot project related to geothermal energy. Gaathier also occupies voluntary executive and non executive board positions at various companies and NGO's. One of the former voluntary positions he occupied was with Awqaf South Africa, where he gained valuable knowledge and insights into the NGO sector as well as Charitable Endowments and Islamic Finance. Dr. Mahed also served on the International Association of Hydrogeologists Early Career Network as a steering committee member as well as on the Young Earth Scientist's Network as the CFO and Vice President for Career Advancement. In line with this he has completed multiple Postgraduate certificates in Leadership, Waqf and Islamic Finance.He was voted one of the Brightest Young Minds in South Africa for the year 2010, Mail & Guardian top 200 Young South Africans to take to lunch for 2011 and a World Islamic Economic Forum Global Young Fellow for 2013. He received the Nelson Mandela Alumni Society Rising Star Award for 2017 and was also admitted into the Royal Society of South Africa. Dr Mahed has been awarded an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, amongst multiple other prestigious funding opportunities, for exchange at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Gaathier was also a finalist in two categories for the NSTF awards, dubbed the Oscars of Science in South Africa, in 2018. He was was awarded the Science Faculty Excellent Teacher award for 2018 and the University Emerging Lecturer award from the Vice Chancellor for Excellence for 2020. Dr Mahed also served as the Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Science at Nelson Mandela University.