Rochester Institute of Technology - Dubai appoints Yousef Al-Assaf as new President

Commenting on the occasion, Dr. Assaf said: "The Gulf is one of the most dynamically developing regions in the world. Therefore, providing a career-oriented education is extremely critical to developing the human capacity that would create a knowledge-based economy."

Dr. Al-Assaf added, "RIT is a leading university and can provide the necessary education and development to achieve these goals. RIT Dubai will instill in its students innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership skills that will allow them to succeed both locally and internationally."

Dr. Jeremy Haefner, RIT provost and senior vice president of academic affairs welcomed the appointment of Dr. Al-Assaf which followed "a very rigorous search and selection process that included a diverse pool of candidates from all over the world."

He added, "The search committee felt that Dr. Al-Assaf's commitment to delivering a career-oriented education for the region, his sense of values and his experience will make him an exceptional leader for the next phase of RIT Dubai."

Dr. Haefner said that while at American University of Sharjah, Dr. Al-Assaf has overseen a substantial enrollment increase in engineering students, the addition of several new academic programs; ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accreditation, and numerous partnerships with local and regional industries and institutions.

After obtaining his engineering Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1988, Al-Assaf was appointed as the chair of the Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Jordan and was a pioneer in establishing the Engineering Outreach Program. The program won a variety of awards for bridging academia with industry/service sectors.

Al-Assaf subsequently joined American University of Sharjah and became dean of the College of Engineering in 2006. His research interests include using soft computing tools to model and control various industrial and biomedical systems. Al-Assaf was a consultant for various industries working toward optimizing their operations and manufacturing.

The RIT, with its home campus in Rochester, New York, is currently ranked seventh in the Northeast quadrant of the United States, and its colleges of business, fine arts, and engineering are among the top 100 ranked programs in the US. Additionally; RIT is licensed by the Middle States Association of Colleges & Schools, and its business and engineering programs are accredited by AACSB and ABET, respectively.

Based at the 7.2 square km master-planned community, RIT Dubai is surrounded by state-of-the-art office towers, research and development zones, educational institutions, luxury apartments, villas, hotels, healthcare services and a full spectrum of lifestyle facilities, all of which add to the students' educational experience.

RIT Dubai currently offers masters degrees in Business Administration, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Service Leadership and Innovation, as well as Networking and Systems Administration. It also provides bachelor's degree programmes in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Marketing and Management.

Pending accreditation approval, RIT Dubai is set to introduce new degrees in International Business, Information Security Forensics and Applied Networking and System Administration, RIT Dubai awards a degree from New York that is internationally recognized and accredited in the UAE.