New Appointments at AUI

The President, Rachid Benmokhtar Benabdellah, is pleased to officially announce the following appointments:
 
Dr. Amine Bensaid, Vice-President for Academic Affairs,
Dr. Cherif Bel Fekih, Vice President for Student Affairs
Dr. Ahmed Legrouri, Dean of the School of Science and Engineering
Dr. Ben Cox, Assistant-Vice President for Academic Affairs
Dr. Fouad Chaatit, Coordinator, School of Science and Engineering
Dr. Eric Ross, Coordinator, School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Based on their respective backgrounds and experience (cf. bios below) and on their performance at AUI, he is confident they will provide valuable leadership in their new positions and be instrumental in our pursuit and achievement of the new ambitious goals we have set for AUI.

On this occasion, the President would like to congratulate them for the trust invested in them. The President has no doubt that you will enjoy working with them. The President also invites you to cooperate with them for the fulfillment of their duties and for the implementation of AUI's development plan.

Bios:

Amine Bensaid
Amine Bensaid holds a BS in Information Systems, an MS in Computer Engineering and a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of South Florida (USF).  Amine has held research positions in the Center for Engineering and Medical Image Analysis (1990-92) and the Intelligent Systems Lab (1992-94) at USF, and in the Information Theory Group at the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands) in 1995.  In 1999, he was a Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science.  He has served as a UNDP expert on quality assurance, and he is a Fulbright Scholar and a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society.  Amine has some forty research publications in the areas of intelligent systems, data mining and Arabic computing, and he is Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (a premier research journal on intelligent systems).  

Amine has been a member of the computer science faculty at AUI since 1994; in 1997, he was appointed as a program coordinator and then in 2001, he started serving as the Dean of the School of Science & Engineering.  During his deanship at SSE, SSE has set up a faculty evaluation system and a research system to promote faculty research and development, and it has eliminated undesired turnover of faculty; SSE faculty have increased the school’s external research funding more than 60 folds, developed new engineering programs, launched formal quality assurance, doubled the number of student applications to SSE, and initiated partnerships with prestigious institutions in Europe and the US.

Cherif Bel Fekih
A native of Midelt in the Atlas Mountains, Cherif Bel Fekih went to school in Midelt then boarding school in Errachidia. He earned a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature and a Postgraduate Diploma from Mohammed V University in Rabat then a Master of Education and A Doctor of Education from Temple University, Phialdelphia, USA. He taught in high school, Teacher's Training College then the College of Education, Mohammed V University to which he has been affiliated since 1978. He also spent time in the UK (French assistant at a comprehensive School and attending a one-year course in Victorian Studies at the University of Hull).

In addition to his teaching, he spent thirteen years on a long term educational assignment at the Royal Court in the United Arab Emirates.

He has been in charge of the Division of Student Affairs since August 1999.

Ahmed Legrouri
Ahmed Legrouri received a Bachelor of Science (1979) from Mohamed V University in Rabat, a Third Cycle Doctorate (1982) form the National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse in France and a PhD (1988) from Glasgow University in the UK. He has been a member of the chemistry faculty at the Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech since 1982 and Al Akhawayn University Since its inception in 1994. In addition to teaching chemistry and materials science, he has been serving as the Academic Coordinator for Science and Engineering at the School of Science & Engineering of AUI since 1998. He has actively contributed to the development of SSE and AUI as an active member of several committees. His research interests include the understanding and development of new solid materials in relation with natural resources valorization and water purification. He is a Fulbright (USA), DAAD (Germany) and TWAS (Italy) scholar. He has supervised several doctoral theses and published more than forty articles in peer reviewed journals and conferences proceedings.

Ben Cox
Ben Cox joined AUI in 2003 as Assistant Professor of Human Resource Development, and has subsequently served as the HRD program coordinator and SHSS undergraduate programs coordinator. His academic background includes an M.Ed. in Educational Curriculum and Instruction and a Ph.D. in Human Resource Development. Dr. Cox came to AUI from the Texas Engineering Extension Service, where he was responsible for institutional accreditation, quality assurance for 32 professional certification programs, and project management of e-learning implementations. His research has focused on cultural and technological influences on human relations and performance, expatriate adjustment, young entrepreneur development, international benchmarking of HR practices, and national human resource development in Morocco.

Fouad Chaatit
Fouad Chaatit graduated with a Bachelor in Mathematics in 1981 from Université de Haute Normandie in Rouen, France. He earned his Master’s from the same university in 1982. He moved to Paris where he studied Stochastic Processes and Analysis in Université Pierre et Marie Curie to earn a Diplome d’Etudes Approfondies in September 1983. He then started a doctoral degree and studied Analysis and Probability in several Parisian institutions including IHP, ENS, IHES, Orsay to earn a Doctorate in October 1985 from Université Paris VII, after which he moved back to Morocco to lecture at Mohammed V University in Rabat. In 1988, he moved to the US where he earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Analysis) from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. He worked as a Visiting Professor in the University of Texas at El Paso from 1993 to 1994, then as a Visiting Professor at the University of Missouri at Columbia from 1994 to 1995, when he joined AlAkhawayn University. Pr. Chaatit has been an Associate member of the Indian Statistical Institute, of the TWAS, was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar and an Invited Speaker at several AMS conferences as well as a NATO Advanced Studies Institute.

Eric Ross
Eric Ross is a Canadian citizen. He holds degrees in Geography (MSc., Université du Québec à Montréal, 1990) and in Islamic Studies (PhD., McGill University, 1996). He has published research on Sufism and urbanization in contemporary Senegal and was part of AUI's multidisciplinary team investigation the impacts of tourism development in Essaouira (2001-02). Since 1998 he has been teaching a variety of geography and methodology courses in SHSS, obtaining the rank of Associate Professor in 2006. He has also been coordinating the SHSS Bachelor's degree in International Studies since 2003.