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Nidal Najjar

Digambara Patra will be joining Department of Chemistry, AUB this fall as an assistant professor in Chemistry. He obtained his M.Sc in 1996 as well as M.Phil in 1997 both in Chemistry from Sambalpur University, Orissa, India and graduated his Ph.D in Chemistry in 2001 at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. He did his postdoctoral studies at various places, e.g.  University of Basel, Switzerland; Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany; and Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan for five years before working as a visiting lecturer in Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. His general research area is experimental physical chemistry dealing with advanced spectroscopy, imaging, probing & single molecule studies where he gives emphasis on nano-scale investigation, bio analysis, physical method development, and studying mechano-chemistry.

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Before coming to AUB, John MacLean taught English at Illinois Central College in the USA.  Prior to that, he was the Director of IT Services at a K-12 school in central Illinois.  John has also previously taught English at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain and at the American University in Cairo.  He also received a MA in TEFL from AUC.  John is married to Janet and they have four daughters.  John enjoys living and working in a cross-cultural environment.  He also likes to spend time reading, studying philosophy, and camping with his family.

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Farah Alwan Jassim will be joining the AUB as an instructor at the Department of  English this fall. She earned her B.A. degree in Translation  (English-Arabic) in 1995 from University of Mustansiriya, College of  Arts, Translation Department/ Baghdad-Iraq. She earned her M.A. degree  in Translation (English-Arabic) in 1998 from University of  Mustansiriya, College of Arts, Translation Department /  Baghdad-Iraq. Before coming to AUB, she worked as a teaching staff  member for four years at The Higher Institue for Training Teachers,  Department of English/ Libya. She lectured at The7th of April  University, College of Arts, Department of English/ Libya. She was  appointed as a teaching staff member at The University of Baghdad,  College of Education/ Baghdad, Iraq. She used to be a pet lover, but  her baby daughter Mariam is now the love of her life. She  likes reading, traveling and is very curious to know new cultures.

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Hossam Yamani holds Ph.D., and Ed.M in Mathematics Education, M.S. and B.S., in Mechanical Engineering from State University of New York at Buffalo.
Dr. Yamani has teaching experience with the American University of Beirut, University at Buffalo, Buffalo State College and Medaille College, Buffalo, New York. He also served as a Mathematics Specialist in the Academics Skills Center and assisted the Mathematics Competency component of the College’s General Education committee to frame its recommendations regarding the mathematical knowledge and skills which should be expected of a college graduate and designed a course to meet those goals.
Dr. Yamani considers teaching mathematics as a challenging and interesting adventure,  it focuses on student’s motivation, knowledge communication, understanding students’ interests, difficulties, and abilities. His interests involve several areas such as difficulties students’ confront in learning mathematics, proper skills that students have to have to be good in mathematics, factors that students may affect on their abilities to be good in mathematics, motivation of students in learning mathematics, and on the relationship between content knowledge in mathematics and problem solving.

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Maya Farah is an Assistant Professor in Marketing at the Olayan School of Business. She received a BSc in Banking and Finance in 2000, an MBA in 2002 from LAU (Beirut) and has been listed on the Dean�s List for having graduated with the highest GPA in the School of
Business all through her years of education. She also obtained a PhD in Marketing (Consumer Behavior) from Manchester Business School in 2007. Her research interests include consumer psychology; social-cognitive theories applications to the understanding of consumer behavior and misbehavior; and country of origin effects on consumer choices. In her spare time, she likes reading, silk painting, and enjoys traveling and learning new languages.

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Chantal Farra-Awwad obtained her MD degree from Saint Joseph University in 1996. Following which, she pursued a fully integrated four-year residency training in Medical Genetics at the Universities of Aix-Marseille (Marseilles) and Rene Des Cartes (Paris) in France. Her medical training in Cytogenetics, Molecular Genetics and Clinical Genetic Counseling were pursued at La Timone hospital (Marseilles), Necker hospitals des enfants malades (Paris), and Gustave Roussy Villejuif (Paris). She then performed a fellowship in Molecular Cytogenetics at the Brigham and Women’s hospital, Harvard Medical School (Boston).
Following her return to Lebanon in 2003, Dr. Farra-Awwad was appointed as director of the Genetic laboratories at the Chronic Care Center, where she developed several genetic testing introduced for the first time in Lebanon, amongst which preimplantation genetic diagnosis of human embryos prior to their replacement to the uterus.
She was also appointed Clinical Associate in the Department of Pediatrics at AUBMC where she performed genetic counseling.
During her years of residency training, Dr. Farra-Awwad received the UNESCO Award for the top ten young women scientists for 2001.
She took part in the ‘Developmental Genome Anatomy Project’, a component of the ‘Human Genome Project’ at Harvard Medical School and took part in the sequencing and publishing of Human Chromosome 7. She was also involved in research on Cystic fibrosis mutations and autoimmune disease genotypes in the Lebanese population, and CVD genotyping in sickle cell anemia patients.
Dr. Farra-Awwad will have primary appointment of 75% of her time in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, where she will be involved in the teaching activities of the Medicine and MLT students, and will be using her clinical expertise in cytogenetics and molecular genetics to include preimplementation genetic diagnosis and genetic disorder. She will also be having 25% involvement in the clinical and teaching activities of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

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Hussein Karnib received his MD degree from the American University of Caribbean St Martin, British West Indies, in 1997. After which, he completed one year of Internship and two years of Residency Training at the Makassed General Hospital (an FM/AUBMC affiliated program) in 2001, followed by two years of Fellowship in Nephrology at FM/AUBMC in 2003, during which he received the “Fellow of the Year” award. Dr. Karnib then traveled to the United States where he completed two years of Fellowship in Nephrology-Molecular Genetics of Renal Diseases at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, New York in 2007. During his training at Columbia, Dr. Karnib received an advanced training in medical genetics research that was sponsored and funded by a competitive award from the International Society of Nephrology. He also learned to prepare and conduct standard molecular genetics experiments designed to resolve the genetic basis of kidney disease in human pedigrees.
Dr. Karnib will be involved in the teaching and research activities of the Department of Physiology, and “will bring to the department significant expertise in bench research of inherited and familial genetic diseases of the kidney, a substantial health problem in Lebanon because of consanguinity”, as quoted by the Acting Chairperson.

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Rabih Kamleh received a Maitrise in Natural Sciences from the Lebanese Univesity in 1997. He got his Master of Sciences in Food Technology from the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, AUB in 2002, then he got his Doctorate degree in Biotechnology and Food Processing in 2005 from Institut National Polytechnique of Lorraine in France. During the last 9 years, he worked for with the Small Holder Livestock Rehabilitation Project in Lebanon that was installed and financed by the International Fund for Agriculture Development UN-IFAD as a Center manager. He installed, managed and evaluated the work of Milk Collection Centers where milk is received and handled according to international standards, all while helping dairy farmers in the Bekaa region in the aim to produce the required quality. He also worked as a consultant in food processing and food quality control for ESCWA- UN, and for several private companies in the region. He attended international trainings in Dairy Sciences and technology in Netherlands and France. His researches focused on milk and dairy products like cheese and butter.

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Robert Ross joins AUB as a Visiting Assistant Professor of American  Studies.  His research and teaching interests include the political  economy of professional sports, historical and contemporary labor  geographies, the geographies of labor processes and monopoly power,  and American cities.  He received his Ph.D. from the Department of 
Geography, Maxwell School, at Syracuse University; an M.Sc., with  distinction, in Geography, "Modernity, Space and Place," from  University College London; and a B.A., summa cum laude, in  Anthropology and Sociology, from West Chester University of  Pennsylvania.  He has taught undergraduate and graduate students at  Syracuse University and West Chester University of Pennsylvania.  In  addition to his academic interests, Robert enjoys running, baseball,  soccer, and the visual arts.

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Hiba Khodr will be joining the department of Political Studies and Public Administration as an Assistant Professor. She received her BS in Mathematics from the American University of Beirut in 1988 and another BS in Diagnostic Medical Sonography from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992 and a MS with honors in Instructional Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1993. She earned her Ph.D in Public Administration and Policy from Florida State University in 2005. Her research interests include health policy, public reform, and public personnel management. She likes traveling, collecting antiques, and spending time with family and friends.

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Rima Rantisi comes from Chicago, Illinois to Beirut to teach writing courses in the English department at AUB.  From fall 2004 to spring 2007, Rima taught writing courses at Columbia College and Wilbur Wright College, which comprised inner-city arts students and community college students, respectively. She is a graduate of DePaul University's Master's in Writing program where she found her affinity especially for creative non-fiction. Her primary interest in incorporating the principles of this genre in her teaching of composition and rhetoric courses is to nurture awareness in students of the details and meanings of their personal, social, and political environments.  Rima believes that writing with this awareness is an avenue for social engagement, and its proliferation a means to peace.
 

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Rana Haidar has a master's degree in Applied Linguistics from AUB and has been teaching for four years. She enjoys her vocation a lot, for she is a firm believer in the power of proper education and the crucial role of the teacher as a guide and facilitator of knowledge. She hopes that the academic year 2007/2008 will prove fruitful and fulfilling to everyone.

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Dr. Kamel has received his BC degree from Cairo University in Accountancy, MA in Economics and MBA from Central Michigan University and PhD from Benedictine University in Chicago. He have over 15 years of extensive management and consulting experience in Management and Organization Development in Fortune 500 companies including Shell Oil, Motorola, Marconi, Prudential financial among others. He taught at Loyola University in Chicago and Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. Dr. Kamel research interests are in Strategic Planning, change Management, Leadership and Corporate Culture. He is Joining Olayan School of Business as an Assistant Professor of Management.

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Ali Haidar was born in Baalbeck, Lebanon in 1963 and studied geology at the University of Parma, Italy before moving to Switzerland for his doctoral studies at the ETH Zürich. Those studies focused on coccolithophores, a group of marine algae used by geologists to monitor past climate changes and therefore understand short and long term variability in the marine ecosystem in particular and the Ecosystem Earth in general. He also attended several specializing courses (in marine phytoplankton culture techniques, geological risk analysis, micropaleontology, geostatistics, etc.) in Switzerland, France and the US before he became a lecturer at AUB. Now he is assistant Professor at the Department of Geology of AUB.

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Mike Osta will be joining the department of Biology, AUB this fall as an assistant professor in Biology. Mike Osta received his BSc in biology in 1995 and MSc in Microbiology in 1997, both from AUB. He then obtained the DEA in Biology and health from USJ in joint collaboration with the University of Montpellier II, France, and graduated his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2002 at the University of Montpellier II. He did 3 years of postdoctoral research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, and 2 years at Imperial College London, UK. He received an award form the CNRS which funded his 3 year PhD studies, and a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship awarded by the European Commission for a period of 2 years during his postdoctoral studies. His general interest is understanding the molecular and cellular interactions between infectious agents and their invertebrate vectors. Mike also enjoys swimming, traveling and learning Greek.

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Dr. Ghassan Antar will be joining the AUB Department of Physics this fall as an Assistant Professor. He obtained his Maî trise in Physics from the Lebanese University, his DEA in Laser & Matter from Paris VI and his PhD from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris about light scattering in turbulent flows. He did postdoctoral studies first with the CEA-Saclay on complex fluids before moving to the south of France to work with the CEA-Cadarache on fusion. He later joined the University of California San Diego in the US where he spent more than six years doing research on fusion in magnetically confined devices. Last year, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Max-Planck Institut fuer Plasmphysik in Garching, Germany working on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. The general research areas are on fusion energy, magnetically confined plasma, tokamaks, turbulence in fluids and plasmas, complex fluids and surface physics.

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Natalie Honein-Shehadi is joining the English Department this fall as an instructor.  She holds an MA in English Language from AUB, another MA in Political Science from AUB, and a BA in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.  She was a graduate assistant at the English Department for two years, during which she taught intensive English courses and tutored at the Writing Center.  She believes in using writing as a tool for learning, and is the recipient of the International Writing Centers Association grant for her research on writing centers.  Natalie intends to pursue a PhD in applied linguistics next fall.  On a personal level, Natalie grew up in Boston, MA, and moved to Lebanon thirteen years ago.  She is married with four children.

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Daniel Asmar will be joining the department of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor.  Daniel obtained his Ph.D. in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo.  He obtained his Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut and his Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.   Daniel’s research interests include Robotics and Computer Vision.  Specifically, he has interests in autonomous robot navigation and mapping, environment representation and recognition, and segmentation methods in Computer Vision.  Other interests include iris detection and recognition for the sake of biometrics, and visual-based tracking of people and cars for security purposes. The major contribution of his doctoral research is the demonstration of a proof of concept using real data of a collection of algorithms which use a passive sensor (a camera) to detect, localize, and recognize instance of natural landmarks ( e.g., trees) in order to perform SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping).

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Shadi Najjar will be joining the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Najjar earned his B.E. and M.E. in civil engineering from AUB in 1999 and 2001, respectively. In 2005, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Ph.D. in civil engineering. Dr. Najjar’s research at the University of Texas at Austin involved experimental studies related to the behavior of soils and soil/solid interfaces at very low confining pressures and analytical studies related to reliability-based design in geotechnical engineering, with particular emphasis on risk management in onshore and offshore foundation design. Between 2005 and 2007, Dr. Najjar taught courses on a part-time basis in the American University of Technology, Lebanese American University, Notre Dame University, and American University of Beirut. In addition, he worked with Polytechnical Inc. and Dar Al-Handasah Consultants (Shair and Partners) as a geotechnical engineering consultant.

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Pat Lewtas is an assistant professor in philosophy who works in metaphysics (what there is), philosophy of mind (what mind is and how it connects to other things), and philosophy of science (what science is, what it shows, and how it shows it). Pat's dissertation argued that we're conscious because our most basic parts - e.g. electrons and quarks - are conscious, just as we have mass because electrons and quarks have mass. (Yes, you read that right!) Pat believes one of the jobs of philosophy is to paint "big pictures" - telling us what we are, what the world is, and how we ought to live - pictures similar in scope (and possibly only in scope) to those provided by religion, but here informed by reason rather than faith.
Pat came to academia late, having worked as a lawyer in Canada for longer than he
cares to admit. He has many outside interests, including especially music and wilderness travel - summer and winter - in the far north. Give him a chance, and he'll bore you with tales of wind, snow, water and beautiful empty lands.

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Yara Zaweel will be joining the English Department at A.U.B as a full time instructor this fall after having been a part time instructor during the spring of 2007. She earned her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from A.U.B. She also completed a teaching diploma at the Lebanese American University. During her time as a graduate student, she worked as a graduate assistant and spent much time in the writing center working with students on their writing and at the same time pursuing one of her interests: creative writing.

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Joumana Nasr received a Bachelor degree in Environmental Health from the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB in June 2003. She then received a Masters degree in Environmental Sciences (major: Environmental Health) from the Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Science Program at AUB in June 2005.
Joumana did an Internship at the United Nations Environment Program / The Regional Office for Europe (UNEP / ROE), in Geneva/Switzerland, during summer 2005. She then conducted a training relating to wastewater treatment, in Hamburg/Germany, during summer 2006. Moreover she worked as a research assistant at the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at AUB then at the department of Environmental Health at AUB as well. Furthermore, she worked as a consultant on a UNICEF project relating to the post 2006 war’s environmental problems in South Lebanon.

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Dr. Zgheib is a Family Physician, graduate of the American University of Beirut. She received her MD in 1998, graduated as a Specialist in Family Medicine in 2002, and completed a 1 year Chief Residency in Family Medicine in 2003. She then spent a two year International Merck Sharp and Dohme fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh and 1 year as Instructor in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Zgheib’s research interests focus on Pharmacogenomics and interindividual variability in drug metabolism, mainly in liver disease, pregnancy, obesity and the elderly. She is also interested in In-hospital drug use and regulations in addition to phenotyping of diseases, mainly liver disease and aging.

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Dr Boulos graduated with an MD degree from The American University of Beirut in 2001, following which he spent an internship year in the Pathology Department at AUBMC, and went on to complete a residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee in 2006. In 2007, he also completed a year-long clinical and research fellowship in breast pathology under Dr. David Page. He currently holds certification by the American Board of Pathology in both Anatomic and Clinical Pathology. His research interests include the biology and epidemiology of premalignant breast disease, namely flat epithelial atypia, atypical ductal hyperplasia, and ductal carcinoma in-situ, as well as benign stromal and malignant biphasic breast tumors.
In his spare time, Dr. Boulos also maintains a strong interest in artistic endeavors, from painting to poetry and music.

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Dr. Eid graduated with MD degree from the Lebanese University in 1999. After which, he completed two years of residency training in Internal Medicine at the Lebanese University in 2001. He then subsequently completed five years of residency training and one year of fellowship in Radiation Oncology at FM/AUBMC in 2007.
During his training, Dr. Eid demonstrated a remarkable interest in clinical and academic radiation oncology and showed great interpersonal skills and work ethics, as stated by the Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at FM/AUBMC.
Dr. Eid's name appeared on 2 peer reviewed publications.

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Hicham Gebran is joining AUB’s Mathematics Department as a visiting assistant professor. He received his first Master’s degree in pure mathematics from the Lebanese University in 1998, and his second Master’s in mathematical modeling and scientific computations in 1999 through a joint program between several universities. He received his PhD in quasilinear elliptic systems and topological degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, in 2005. His research interests include partial differential equations and related areas such as functional analysis, and degree theory among others.

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Hala Freiha Nassif will be joining the Economics Department at AUB as a full time lecturer this fall after having been a part time lecturer during the spring and summer semesters of 2007. She holds a BA degree in International Economics, a Licence in ‘Langues Vivantes Etrangeres’, a Diploma in Arabic Studies, and a Ph.D in Economics. Her research interests include Corporate Governance and Islamic Economy and Finance.

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Winfried Held is Classical Archaeologist and came to AUB as Visiting Professor from Julius-Maximilians-Universitaet Wuerzburg, Germany. After studying in Muenchen and Berlin, he finished his MA in 1991 and then stayed for four years at the German Archaeological Institute at Istanbul, Turkey. He submitted his PhD at Freie Universitaet Berlin in 1995 and was granted with the travel scholarship of the German Archaeological Institute, to visit during one year the Mediterranean and Near Eastern countries. Since 1997 he teaches as assistant professor, since 2004 as associate professor at the department of Classical Archaeology in Wuerzburg. Winfried Held's research interests are ancient architecture, the archaeology of Anatolia, and the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. He conducted several field projects in Turkey, at present an archaeological survey at Bybassos in southwestern Turkey.

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