- Can you discuss any recent accomplishments or milestones achieved under your leadership?
I am very proud that I have been able to support the faculty, staff, and students of the college to accomplish so much in the past three years. We have launched and new Bachelor of Science program in bioengineering as well as two PhD programs, the first PhD programs in the college. In order to ensure a sustained growth of our PhD programs I have secured institutional commitment to support up to 80 PhD students annually (ramping up within the next three years) financially by covering their tuition and paying them living expenses.
The college has also been rising in national rankings. For the past two years, our college has been ranked by the US News and World Report as one of the top 50 undergraduate engineering schools in the country.
2. How has GEDC helped your Institute achieve the goal of collaborating with other international organizations?
Having direct access to a global network of engineering Deans it’s an invaluable asset that allows us, as a GEDC member to explore collaborations and partnerships with universities across the globe. We are currently in the process of finalizing partnership agreements with universities in Africa, Europe, and Asia.
3. How would you characterize the current relations between New York Institute of Technology, its faculty, and the corporate and industry world? What are some of the projects that you are implementing with local companies?
We have established an excellent relationship with our local industry, but given that traditionally there have been few interactions between the institutions of higher learning and the industry, we have a long way to go to reach an optimum level of collaboration. One of the major achievements of the college in the past two years has been the establishment of a cooperative education (Co-op) program. The Co-op option exists within all of our undergraduate engineering and computer science degrees. If students opt in, six months of immersive full employment in their field of study in a local company becomes a degree requirement for them. This employment opportunity obviously is extremely beneficial to our students because they build practical experience while they are completing their degree programs. But more related to your question, the Co-op program provides a great opportunity for us to partner with the local industry. In a market where a highly skilled engineering workforce is difficult to recruit and train, our Co-op partners benefit from having access to our talent pool. They hire our Co-op students for six months and get to know them. Many employers end up extending full-time offers to the Co-op students that they have worked with and are happy with.
We also have explored other engagement opportunities with the industry served our students will have direct access to them, as well as for us to engage with them in product development and other short-term projects.
We also have established an annual industry leader of the year award, that we present to a local company that has gone above and beyond and engaging with our college and our students.
4. What are the challenges you face as a Dean in the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences (CoECS) at New York Institute of Technology? And how do you solve these challenges?
One of the key challenges that I face as a Dean is faculty fatigue. Many of our faculty have to manage a productive research program, teach classes in multiple modalities, and maintain a strong record of service to the institution and to the scientific community. This workload has consistently increased in the past few years. Many Deans struggle with ways to provide support the faculty to be able to manage their ever-increasing workloads.
Another challenge that all engineering schools face is keeping up with the fast pace of change in technology and aligning our curriculum with these changes. An example is the relatively rapid expansion of AI, in particular generative AI in every aspect of education.
5. What are your contributions to the development of the IEEE as the former Board of Directors?
As the premier and the largest professional organization in the world, the IEEE seeks to expand the communities that it serves. I have been fortunate to have contributed what I can by publicizing the IEEE’s educational offerings, its value to its members, and its commitment to improving the human condition. I’ve been able to do this via recorded interviews and webinars as well as presentations, conferences and events. As a long-standing volunteer, I am proud of what I can contribute.
6. What is your vision for the New York Institute of Technology’s growth and development in the next five years?
I envisioned the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences to grow to be an internationally recognized engineering school through its breadth and quality of academic program offerings, excellence in scholarship and knowledge creation by its faculty, and the success of its students after graduation. We are on the right path towards this vision, by having expanded our undergraduate and graduate degree program offerings, significantly expanding faculty research Resources, and fostering a student-centered environment where our students can thrive within the classroom as well as grow professionally and personally outside of the classroom through a variety of programs entrepreneurship activities and social events and initiatives.
7. As a dean, How do you foster a positive academic and social environment for students, faculty, and staff at New York Institute of Technology?
A welcoming, safe, and civil working environment is the foundation for a college’s faculty, staff, and students. A consultative, transparent, communicative, and fair environment encourages all to feel that their contributions matter, their voices are heard, and policies and procedures or applied consistently and fairly. To this end, I have tried my best to establish transparent policies, established communication channels, and strictly enforce civil and cordial interactions, I have established authorities for individuals to perform their responsibilities with independence, while maintaining accountability at all levels.
8. Can you discuss any recent accomplishments or milestones achieved under your leadership?
We have managed to come out of the pandemic stronger than before. Our enrollment continues to increase, as we attract higher quality and a more significant number of students both internationally as well as domestically.
We have received multiple awards and recognitions that have been a testament to what we have been trying to strive for in the areas of student success, broadening participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, and our innovative initiatives such as our Co-op program.
9. What advice would you give to students aspiring to become future academic leaders or deans?
My advice has always been that to build a successful career in academia, very similar to building a strong structure, one must consistently build their career layer upon layer. This means let’s students before graduation must strive to obtain the highest academic achievements. And after graduation once they have secured careers in academia to build a strong record of teaching, scholarship, and service to the scientific community. This is not sufficient though: In parallel with this, they should take every opportunity to develop their leadership skills. One cannot achieve academic leadership positions without having academic credentials recognized within their disciplines in addition to a proven track record of growing leadership Responsibilities. Leadership responsibilities come in many forms including leading research groups, chairing departments, and managing activities of groups of various sizes.
10. How do you support faculty development and ensure high-quality teaching?
We have a robust, rigorous, and constructive protocol built to support faculty from the initial hire all the way towards when the faculty or in their mid-career. This support system includes a constructive and consultative annual performance review for the tenure track faculty, a generous support system for the faculty’s professional development, and an environment to recognize and celebrate excellence.
High-quality teaching is a cornerstone of our value system at the college, and all faculty are held to high standards in this regard. Our Center for Teaching and Learning provides on-the-ground support for the faculty to build and improve their teaching skills and strategies, institutional awards recognize faculty who achieve the highest standards in teaching, and the college provides opportunities for faculty to participate in initiatives and programs that help them keep up with the ever-changing landscape of higher education.
11. How do you handle conflicts or difficult decisions within the academic community?
Faculty, by their very nature, are fiercely independent. The only approach to handle and resolve conflicts and difficult situations is to be transparent, collaborative, and understanding. There are occasions where difficult situations occur between faculty and faculty, faculty and staff, and faculty and students. It is important to address the situations immediately and directly, listen to all parties to understand their positions and concerns, share with all parties the policies and procedures that impact the situation at hand, and be communicative and transparent about the proposed solution to the situation. Many other approaches that may work in other work environments will not work and higher education. In the end, as long as every party feels that they were treated with respect, even though if the outcome does not turn out to be in their favor, they would walk away from the situation knowing that the process was handled fairly and transparently.
12. How do you engage with students and actively seek their feedback and input?
Students constitute the core of our mission within the college. It is their short-term and long-term success that ultimately defines our accomplishments. As a result, I have established multiple mechanisms to seek students’ input and to provide continuous communication with them. Every semester I hold coffee hour with the Dean where all the students are invited to share their concerns as well as their positive input with me. Our office of student life organizes a student town hall every academic year for students to have a large and open forum to discuss priorities and any issues. Since I started my service as the Dean, periodically every semester students receive a Dean’s newsletter targeted at students directly. This newsletter shares with them the latest developments within the college, announcements of initiatives, events, and programs of interest to the students, as well as a listing of opportunities, whether it is scholarships internships, or anything else that’s available to our students.
13. What initiatives are you currently working on to enhance the student experience?
We have focused heavily on enhancing student experiences outside of the classroom in addition to what they learn from our faculty. These experiences include industry-focused projects and activities that take place within our Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Center (ETIC), which is our maker space and the central hub for all industry-faced projects. A highlight of recent ETIC accomplishments is that we have started our second year of a unique contract with NASA. Within the framework of this contract, interdisciplinary teams of our students work on selected NASA patents and develop proof of concept prototypes, user manuals, and use cases for these patents.
Another strategy that we have successfully maintained is to partner with the industry and to provide direct access, either free or at substantial discounts, to educational and other material provided by industry leaders to develop job-ready skills in our students. Examples of such successful partnerships include our students’ access to Amazon Web Services resources, Red Hat Academy content, and the Google learning program.
New York Institute of Technology’s College of Engineering and Computing Sciences has become the newest member of KEEN, the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network—a national partnership of engineering faculty focused on developing and promoting innovation in engineering education for the good of society. KEEN is an expanding network of more than 55 current partner institutions across the United States with a shared vision of equipping engineering students with not only technical skills but an “entrepreneurial mindset” so that when students graduate, they are prepared to create personal, economic, and societal value through a lifetime of meaningful work.
14. What strategic projects or initiatives are you implementing to increase diversity and gender representation in STEM?
We have been focusing on a multi-pronged strategy to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM. Examples of such initiatives include our annual Women in Engineering and Technology Day which is a one-day event where high school-aged young women come to Campus to attend talks, workshops, and activities to enhance their awareness of opportunities in stem areas; our successful Python programming workshop that was designed for unemployed women; middle school summer maker Academy that is provided to underrepresented communities free of charge thanks to grants that we have secured; and our summer technical workshop to teach about digital hardware design to female high school students, sponsored by Xilinx Corp.
We have been fortunate to be recognized for our systemic approach to the broadening participation of underrepresented groups and were awarded the Diversity Bronze Recognition by the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). The Bronze level recognition indicates that the College has a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan specific to the unit that has been shared with the college and that the plan addresses diversity, equity and inclusion explicitly and individually.