Dr. Faraj graduated with MBBS degree (doctor of medicine) from the University of Jordan, Amman-Jordan in 1999, after which, he completed five years of residency training in General Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center at AUB in 2005. He then subsequently joined the King's College Hospital in London where he completed his fellowship in Liver Transplantation and Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery in 2008. Dr. Faraj is also trained in advanced transplant procurement management and has lectured internationally on this subject.
Dr. Faraj's name appeared on several publications in his area of specialty, and his main interests are pediatric liver transplantation and the surgical management of metastatic colorectal cancer.
Dr. Faraj will be involved in teaching activities of the medical students and residents, and will be seeing patients in the OPD and private clinics as well.
Dr. Leila Dirani
Dr. Leila Akoury Dirani obtained her Maîtrise degree in Clinical Psychology from St. Joseph University in 1984, followed by DESS degree in Clinical and Pathological Psychology, Paris 5- Sorbonne- Centre Henri Pieron in 1985, and a special diploma in Psychometric testing for adults and children, and finally her Ph.D. degree in Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology in 2005 from the University of Paris 5- Sorbonne- Centre Henri Pieron.
Dr. Akoury Dirani is an expert in the field of Childhood and Adolescence Mental Health, and was the Director of the Lebanese Institute for Educators for 8 years and had actively participated in the elaboration of new curricula and professions, as Speech therapy and Psychomotricity. Her dissertation and publications are focused on children with autism and on the children with disability.
In parallel with her academic activities as Assistant Professor at St. Joseph University, Dr. Akoury Dirani was involved in the field work of many projects with different Lebanese ministries aiming at enhancing the quality of education, the adequacy of care and the quality of life of all children in Lebanon, particularly those who are under 6 years old, with handicap and learning disability. She has also occupied, for the last 18 months, the position of Head of Education section at the UN specialized agency- UNICEF, where she was working closely with the stakeholders to make changes on the policy level as well as on the ground to ensure quality education and healthy educational environment for the child.
Dr. Akoury Dirani will be involved in teaching activities of the medical students, and will be involved in the clinical activities in the OPD and private clinics.
Ms. Amany Al Sayyid
Amany Al-Sayyed is a graduate from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She specializes in diaspora, immigration and self-narration studies. She is also a freelance writer - for Vancouver papers but also for Muslim media such as Emel Magazine in the UK. She has been invited to academic conferences ranging from Hawaii University to Harvard. Her current research interests are in cultural formations from the Middle East that circulate in North America, and particularly autobiography, memoirs and self-writing.
Dr. Hala Darwish
Dr. Hala Darwish obtained her Bachelor of Science in Nursing followed by a teaching diploma in Special Education from the American University of Beirut. She completed a Masters of Science in Medical Surgical Nursing along with an Acute Nurse Practitioner Certification at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where she also received her PhD in Bio-Behavioral Nursing. Lately, she completed her post doctorate training at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Dr. Hala Darwish's area of expertise is in neuroscience with emphasis on cognitive and epigenetic changes that follow brain injury. Her dissertation has focused on learning and memory changes that follow mild traumatic brain injury and her post doctorate research examined the epigenetic modification that follow the injury. Also, Dr. Darwish has done research on cognitive and inflammatory changes associated with ageing and is interested in elderly health management.
In addition to research, Dr. Hala Darwish will be involved in theoretical and clinical teaching activities of the nursing students.
Dr. Brian Holland
Brian Holland holds a master of architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor of architecture degree from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Brian has worked since 1999 as an architectural designer for firms in Los Angeles, Denver, and New York, where he has completed a variety of award-winning buildings. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, and has been an invited critic at the University of Colorado, California State Polytechnic University, New York Institute of Technology, and Columbia University. Brian maintains an independent design and research practice in New York City, and was nominated in 2008 for the International Iakov Chernikhov Prize.
Dr. Samer Saade
Dr. Samer Saade holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Pierre Mendes France – Grenoble, France. He has earned a Masters in Finance from the University of Clermont-Ferrand, France, and a Masters in e-Business from Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM), France. He also holds a Maîtrise degree in Business Administration from the Lebanese University.
Dr. Saade’s research interests lie in the intersection of corporate finance and financial markets with an emphasis on behavioral finance. He has focused his Ph.D. research on the anomalies of the initial public offerings of the new economy firms in the United-States. He is involved with the new stream of research on investor’s behavior consequences on the financial nature of the firm and its effects on the financial markets.
Dr. Saade has taught for four years as a lecturer in finance and accounting at the Ecole de Management de Lyon (EM LYON) and at the University of Pierre Mendes France – Grenoble. He has also participated to several research activities in the two institutions.
On the other hand, Dr. Samer Saade has conducted and participated to several consulting projects in finance and e-Business in Lebanon, Europe and the GCC region.
Ms. Samar Harkous
Samar Harkous holds a BA degree in English from the American University of Beirut. She also has a teaching Diploma (TD) and an MA degree in Education with concentration on Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from the same university. Samar is scheduled to defend her doctoral dissertation in Education at USEK in February 2008.
Samar’s research focuses on reading comprehension and strategies and evaluation of intensive English instruction. She has co-authored two studies which were published in Foreign Language Annals and Systems.
Dr. Ghassan Chehab
Ghassan R. Chehab, an assistant professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, teaches and conducts research in the areas of pavement engineering and construction materials. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in those areas. He earned his PhD in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University and Masters in Engineering Management from AUB. His BE in Civil Engineering is also from AUB. Areas of interest and expertise include: experimental testing and modeling of asphalt materials, mechanistic-empirical pavement design, accelerated and full-scale testing, and use of recycled materials and geosynthetics for highway applications. Dr. Chehab had previously worked at the Indiana Department of Transportation, Division of Research, as a pavement structure and materials engineer, and as a post-doctoral research associate at NC State University. Dr. Chehab has been engaged in multiple research projects and has advised several Masters and PhD students. Dr. Chehab holds a practicing license in Civil Engineering and is active in several professional societies and organizations.
Dr. Bilal Orfali
Bilal Orfali recently completed his Ph.D. entitled: “The Art of Anthology: Al-Thaʿālibī and His Yatīmat al-dahr” at Yale University. He is engaged mainly in three areas of research: classical Arabic anthology literature and criticism, early Islamic mysticism and its social context, and Arabic folk literature. He has been the coordinator of the CAMES Arabic summer program at AUB since 2006.
He is the author of “The Art of the Muqaddima in the Works of Abū Manṣūr al-Thaʿālibī (d. 429/1039),” which appeared in The Weaving of Words: Approaches to Classical Arabic Prose (OIB, 2009). He also coauthored with Gerhard Bowering, Sufi Treatises of Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī (in print, expected 2009), which is a critical edition and a textual analysis of five early Sufi treatises by al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) with a detailed analytical study of the author’s writings as a whole. His is currently coauthoring with Stephen J. Davis and Sam Noble a book entitled: A Disputation over a Fragment of the True Cross: A Medieval Arabic Text from the History of Christian-Jewish-Muslim Relations in Egypt. (Brill, expected 2010).
Dr. Nada Melhem
Dr. Melhem finished her undergraduate and graduate studies at the American University of Beirut. After finishing her Master of Sciences (Medical Microbiology and Immunology), she was recruited as an instructor at the MLT program (1998-2000). In august of the year 2000, she left to the USA where she finished her PhD and did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Graduate School of Public Health. During the course of her studies, Dr. Melhem has also finished the Master of Public Health (MPH) requirement and still has to finalize her thesis. Dr. Melhem worked during her PhD dissertation on the in vitro generation of a therapeutic AIDS vaccine in the monkey model based on dendritic cells transfected with wild-type mRNA encoding autologous SIV antigen. Her work resulted in publishing two refereed manuscripts. During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Melhem continued to work towards an AIDS vaccine in the human model as well as her involvement in an HCV T-cell therapy project. Her work also resulted in the submission of a manuscript still under review and another one in preparation. During her leisure time away from research, Melhem reads about fashion and politics, listens to music and practices power-yoga, power-pilates and Body Jam.
Dr. Fadi Zaraket
Fadi Zaraket enjoys playing chess and soccer and writes Arabic poetry and short stories. Fadi joined the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture in the American University of Beirut in 1992 and received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer and Communication Engineering in July 1996 and his Masters of Engineering degree in February 2001. He received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in Dec 2007. His research interests are in automating logic analysis and applying it to large and complex designs. Fadi worked for more than a decade in the industry on building tools for functional and static verification and visualization of hardware and software logic designs. Fadi joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the American University of Beirut as an assistant professor in Feb 2009.
Dr. Hubertus Ruel
Huub Ruel is an AUB - OSB faculty member since February 1, 2009. In 2001 he received his Phd in Business Administration from the University of Twente (The Netherlands) www.utwente.nl . After that he worked for more than 4 years for Utrecht University (Utrecht School of Governance) www.uu.nl/EN/Pages/default.aspx . In September2006 Dr. Ruel had my first Middle East-teaching experience, when he joined the Kuwait-Maastricht Business School (www.kmb.edu.kw & www.msm.nl ). However, as Dr. Ruel preferred to focus more on research, he went back to The Netherlands to join the University of Twente (School of Management and Governance) again
(www.utwente.nl/nikos/about/scientificstaff/ruel.doc/).
Courses that Dr. Ruel taught over the past years were: Human Resource Management, Strategic Management, E-business, Organizational Behavior, Management Information Systems, new business development, and Management in Emerging Economies.
Dr. Ruel has supervised many graduate students in writing their master/MBA theses of which a number of them resulted in publications either for international conferences or in academic books and journals.
Dr. Ruel's research focus: (strategic) human resource information systems / e-HRM /HRIS in global context/ convergence-divergence of HRM policies. He publishes in international refereed journals, in academic books, edits academic books, chaired and co-organized academic workshops and conferences, and presented many papers at international academic conferences.