Learn more about RIT Dubai
Faculty
Dr. Mustafa AG Abushagur, PhD
Dr. Mustafa Abushagur holds a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tripoli, Libya and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Dr. Abushagur is a professor of Microsystems engineering and professor of electrical engineering in the Kate Gleason college of Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He came to RIT from the University of Alabama at Huntsville where he was professor of electrical and computer engineering and professor of optical science and engineering. At the University of Alabama, Dr. Abushagur led development of the university’s optical engineering degree programs. Dr. Abushagur now is the Founding President and Professor at RIT Dubai since 2008.
Professor Abushagur’s research interests include nanophotonics, micro-optical systems, optical MEMS, optical computing and signal processing, optical fiber communications and sensing. He served as the PI or Co-PI of many research projects totaling over 13 million dollars, supported by NSF, FAA, DOE, ARO, AFOSR, NASA. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 papers, 5 book chapters, a book on Fourier Optics and holds several patents. He received numerous excellence awards in research, teaching and service including Distinguished Faculty Member Award, College of Engineering, UAH, 1992; NASA Space Act Award from the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board 2004, and several US NAVY and NASA faculty fellowships.
Dr. Abushagur serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Advanced Optical Technologies, and serves on the editorial board of the Optical and Laser Technology Journal.
As part of Dr. Abushagur’s entrepreneurship activities he founded two start-up companies. He is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Photornix (M) Sdn. Bhd., an optical fiber components companies founded in 1998 with private equity. Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and VP of LiquidLight, Inc., an optical networking equipment developer. It was founded through venture capital investment.
He is an elected Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA), an elected Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Dr. Alex Friess, PhD
Alexander Friess is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai. He received his B.Sc. in Physics and M.Sc. and Ph.D. (1997) in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York. His research background includes experimental fluid dynamics and instrumentation, composite materials and lightweight structures, and optimization with a focus on high performance sports. Dr. Friess has been active globally as consultant and design engineer working on a variety of projects, including participating in the design and engineering of South Africa’s yacht for the America’s Cup 2007, and he has held executive leadership positions in the renewable energy industry in Spain, as well as academic appointments as Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Dubai Aerospace Enterprise University. Current interests are focused on renewable energy applications, and the field of engineering design and design education, with a focus on multinational student collaboration and educating the “global engineer”.
Mr. Daniel Ferguson, BA English
Mr. Daniel Ferguson is from Scotland who has been an English Teacher for over 20 years during that time he has worked extensively in both Europe and the Middle East.
In Europe he has taught in High Schools, Universities teaching Hotel Management and Tourism and for private companies like Audi and Phillips.
His work in the Middle East has taken him to Oman where he worked for the Ministry of Higher Education and for the Ministry of Technology and Sciences.
Mr. Daniel also taught in industry for both Qatar Petroleum and where the object was teaching technical language. He has covered all areas of English Teaching but his specialty is English Language for Special Purpose.
Dr. Hany Ghoneim
Dr. Hany Ghoneim is a full professor in the department of mechanical engineering. He has joined numerous research and development laboratories; including Phillips laboratory, Cornell Injection Molding Program, Lawrie Technology, AT&T laboratory and IBM; where he conducted state of the art research projects in the fields of thermo-mechanics of plastics and composites and vibration damping and control. He also published and presented dozens of papers; as well as developed and taught courses in both fields. He successfully managed a couple of grants in the fields of thermo-mechanical behavior of metals and plastics as well as in vibration suppression and control
Steven Gold
Steven Gold is a professor of economics in the Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His administrative experience includes serving as department chair of finance and accounting for five years, faculty director of the college's management development program, and vice-president of the faculty senate at RIT. The focus of his research has been in the field of business simulations and gaming. He has published over 26 referred journal articles and proceedings on the topics of simulation and gaming, and the modeling of demand, production and finance algorithms. He is the author of 4 computerized business and economic simulations with publishers including MacMillan, Random House, and McGraw-Hill.
He is a fellow and past-president of the national Association of Business Simulations and Experiential Learning (ABSEL). A bibliometric co-citation study cited Steven Gold as one of the most "influential" authors in simulation research with this association. He has received three best research paper awards, and in 2008 was recognized as one of the outstanding reviewers in the simulation research track. Steven Gold has presented his research abroad at the International Simulation and Gaming Association in Weimar, Germany; as a lecturer at Scheffield Polytechnic Institute in England; and in Prague, Czech Republic. For many years, he was an associate editor of Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory, Design, and Research; and is currently one of the reviewers. He received his B.A. in economics and B.S. in industrial engineering at Rutgers University in New Brunswick; and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the State University of New York in Binghamton.
Greg Van Laeken
Professor Greg Van Laeken earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1994. Immediately upon graduating from RIT Mr. Van Laeken relocated to the New York Metropolitan area and began a career as an interbank dealer of interest rate and currency derivatives. By 2003 he had moved to Zurich, Switzerland as the vice president and global head of emerging markets trading for a prestigious private Swiss bank. In this role Mr. Van Laeken helped to develop and oversee rapid growth in the emerging market trading and sales operation for the bank’s foreign exchange division. In 2005 Mr. Van Laeken left the financial services industry to take on a newly created position at his alma mater – business manager and analyst for RIT’s global operations. This role requires Mr. Van Laeken to work directly with senior management across all divisions of the University to provide leadership in the areas of business and financial planning, daily operations and risk management for RIT's overseas campuses. Additionally, Mr. Van Laeken has been tapped to oversee the management of the University's short-term investment portfolio, as well as advising senior management on the University's debt portfolio and interest rate hedging strategies. Mr. Van Laeken also serves RIT’s Saunders College of Business as an adjunct faculty instructor for the MBA program, specializing in the field of international finance and derivative products. Mr. Van Laeken earned his Master of Business Administration degree from RIT in 2008.
Dr. Merouane Lakehal-Ayat
Dr. Merouane Lakehal-Ayat has been a faculty member since 1986. He currently teaches investment theory and corporate finance related graduate and undergraduate classes. During his tenure, he has received numerous awards for his devotion towards his students’ development (most notably, the Who’s Who of American Teachers, along with four College Teaching Awards). Dr. Lakehal-Ayat is also active in the research area through publishing and attending conferences centered on a variety of issues in the field of finance.
In addition, Dr. Lakehal-Ayat was awarded Fulbright Fellowships in 2001, 2002, 2007 where he was involved in a number of consultancy, research, and teaching projects around the world. As such, he is able to offer students a unique, first hand approach rooted in international experience towards facilitating the understanding of how financial theory allows for market economies and its entities to behave and interact with one another.
Ann Leonard
Ann Leonard brings more than 20 years experience as a director for worldwide learning and organization development, first for Eastman Kodak Company's Health Group and most recently for Carestream Health. In this capacity, she provided strategic organization development consulting to the leadership of these two $2.5 billion companies, with a focus on business transformation, global learning and development, talent management and employee engagement. Ann also served as HR Director and Vice President for Kodak's Entertainment Imaging, and Document Imaging organizations, during periods of organization growth and acquisitions. She led global HR teams in both of these divisions in processes such as leadership development, succession planning, recruiting, and performance management. Ann also launched Kodak's eLearning strategy. She earned an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Rochester.
Dr. Thomas Maier
Thomas Maier is currently International Professor for Rochester Institute of Technology- New York, Dubai, Kosovo, and Croatia. He is also, President of GVD-Hospitality Inc. a USA based Hotel development and enterprise consulting firm. He has a PhD from Gonzaga University, Philosophy in Leadership Studies, Spokane Washington. He has more than 26 years of Service-Industry, senior leadership, culinary and luxury resort hospitality industry experience working for Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Red Lion Hospitality Corporation. His industry experience is grounded in NYSE companies involving: Brand management, strategic planning, service leadership, project management, financial performance, operations and asset development.
His primary academic research interests focus on International Leadership, Innovation and Technology. He has published numerous articles in Leadership and Hospitality journals as well as presented his academic research papers on Leadership, Positive Organizational scholarship and Multi-generational Leadership at International symposiums in Kunming China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of (PRC), and Madrid, Spain for the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
He currently serves on the Rochester Institute of Technology International Advisory Board.
Dr. Amer Muhieddin, PhD
Muhieddin Amer (S’92-M’99-SM’03) was born in Attil, Palestine in 1965. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Baghdad, Iraq, in 1988, the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1993 and 1999, respectively. In 1995, he joined the core RF engineering group at Nortel. His responsibilities include RF link budget analysis, design and performance evaluation of new wireless technologies and advanced RF solutions. In his role, Dr. Amer made significant contributions related to the development of new features such as CDMA multi-carrier user traffic management and smart voice codecs for 2G and 3G CDMA systems that has influenced the company’s technology evolution path and product portfolio. He has conducted several engineering workshops and seminars introducing the new technologies to regional engineering teams and service providers.
In his recent role as leader of 4G RF Design and Engineering Solutions, Dr. Amer and his team used analytical and simulation methods to create performance characterization of LTE MAC and PHY algorithms and advanced engineering solutions such as FFR and MIMO and compare their offering with other emerging 4G technologies and existing 2G/3G systems. Dr. Amer was recognized as the company’s subject matter expert in engineering conferences and forums and in resolving customer’s critical design and capacity issues. He has made significant contributions to the wireless industry including identifying the need to have subframe bundling in the LTE uplink operation to improve its performance, which has led to its adoption by the 3GPP standards. Dr. Amer also led an engineering team to create RF propagation models in the 3.5GHz band after securing the required fund to perform the testing and analysis.
Since 2001, he has been an adjunct instructor at the University of Texas at Arlington and Dallas and the University of North Texas teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of telecommunications. Dr. Amer championed dozens of wireless research projects, holds three patents in CDMA wireless product development, and has published over ten papers in IEEE journals and conferences and wireless engineering forums. His research interest includes carrier synchronization of CDMA and OFDM systems, interference management in cellular systems, and design and performance evaluation of PHY and MAC algorithms of 4G wireless systems.
Dr. Bonalyn Nelsen
Bonalyn (Bonnie) Nelsen, Ph.D. Dr. Nelsen joined the faculty of RIT's School of Hospitality and Service Management in July 2008, where she teaches in the graduate and undergraduate programs in service management and human resource development. She has professional and consulting experience in re-engineering and organizational development (for Citicorp), training and development (for the U.S. Department of Education), and career planning and outplacement (for the Santa Clara County [CA] Private Industry Council); she is also a partner in a family-owned business. Bonnie's research and scholarship efforts have centered on the globalization of higher education, case development, training and development in technical occupations, and human capital metrics. In addition to writing book chapters, she has had cases and research papers published in several journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior Teaching Review, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Annual Advances in Case Research. Her current research projects include a pioneering study of workforce development among expatriate faculty working at branch campuses of U.S. universities and a workbook on human capital metrics. Bonnie received her Ph.D in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Master's in Management Studies from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Victor Perotti
Victor Perotti is an Associate Professor and consultant on the business implications of new technologies including: digital business, digital entrepreneurship, Web 2.0, ecommerce, Web business models and mobile work. His most recent research examines social networks (especially Facebook.com), social computing, Clean Slate Internet approaches, mobile collaboration, digital entrepreneurship, electronic communities and video game business models.
Perotti is an accomplished communicator and educator, and was awarded RIT's highest honors for teaching: the Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2000) and the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching (2004). His professional speaking engagements include academic conferences, small group meetings and large auditorium lectures.
Before joining RIT, Perotti completed Masters Degrees in Computer Science (1990) and Cognitive Psychology (1994) as well as a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology (1997), all at Ohio State University. His doctoral thesis examined the visual perception of 3-D structure from motion information.
Perotti's consulting work has ranged from conducting advanced business simulation experiences at Harris R.F. to business plan development for pre-seed video game companies to creating multimedia software for David Bowie's "Jump" CD-ROM
Please check out Victor's blog about his trip to RIT Dubai
Daniel Tessoni
Daniel Tessoni is an assistant professor of Accounting in the College of Business at Rochester Institute of Technology and a CPA. He received his Ph.D. in Accounting from Syracuse University, a MS from Clarkson and a bachelor's degree from St. John Fisher College. He has presented seminars and executive programs on accounting and finance related issues to numerous companies including Constellation Brands, ITT Industries Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, Chase Manhattan Bank, First Empire Bank and Apple Computer.
He served as a member of the Board of Directors of ACC Corp., a publicly- held long distance and cellular telephone company from 1987 until 1998 when the company was purchased by ATT. Dr. Tessoni served as chairman of the Audit Committee, and as a member of the Compensation Committee and the Executive Committee and several special committees.He currently serves on the board of several privately held corporations.
His research interests are in the areas of agency theory and positive accounting theory.
