NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ABU DHABI - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Abu Dhabi Staff Member
- Manager of Operations and Student Advising
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
- Administrative Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Program Head of Chemistry Professor of Chemistry
Job Titles:
- Ambassador
- CEO of Corbin Crossroads Consulting
- SMSP Principal Instructor
Ambassador Michael Corbin (retired), Is CEO of Corbin Crossroads Consulting, a consulting company he established in the United Arab Emirates to help companies with business development activities in the broad region centered on the UAE. Prior to focusing his efforts on the private sector, he was a career diplomat with extensive experience in the Middle East finishing his diplomatic service as US Ambassador to the UAE from July 2011 to December 2014.
Job Titles:
- Business Operations and Human Resources
- Director of Human Resources and Business Operations
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Affiliation
Borja García de Soto is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and a Global Network Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University (NYU). He is the director of the S.M.A.R.T. Construction Research Group at NYUAD and conducts research in the areas of automation and robotics in construction, cybersecurity in the AEC industry, artificial intelligence, lean construction, and BIM.
Borja has extensive experience in the industry as a structural engineer, project manager, and construction consultant. He is a Professional Engineer (PE) with licenses in California and Florida and has international experience in multiple aspects of construction projects.
Borja received his PhD from ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He also holds an MSc in Civil Engineering with a concentration in engineering and project management from the University of California at Berkeley, an MSc in Civil Engineering with a concentration in structural design from Florida International University (FIU), and a BSc in Civil Engineering (graduated cum laude) also from FIU.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor of Music Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
- News
Carlos Guedes has a multifaceted activity in composition and sound design counting numerous commissioned projects for dance, theatrical performance, film, and interactive installations besides conventional concert music. He counts more than 80 premieres internationally, having presented work in places such as Expo'98, Expo 2020, European Capital of Culture 2001 and 2012, ArCo, De Waag, Ars Electronica, ICMC, SMC, SIGGPRAH, Judson Church, Shangai eArts, The Kitchen, National Theater S. João, Casa da Música, Beijing Modern Music Festival, and Asia Culture Center. His music is eclectic, combining influences that range from industrial to carnatic music, from western erudite traditions to trans-cultural free improvisation, always using computational technologies as tools for further expanding musical expression.
Guedes also develops a parallel activity as a researcher, focusing on the development of generative computational technologies for music performance, composition, and improvisation. He is one of the founders of the Music and Sound Cultures (MaSC) research group at NYU Abu Dhabi, a group that develops hybrid methodologies blending computational and humanistic approaches for the understanding of the music from the Gulf, East Africa, and South India. Home to several funded projects that develop their research agenda, a central aspect to the group's activities is the development of novel computational tools (such as VR environments and games) for promoting interaction and enculturation with music from this region.
During the year of 2022, Carlos Guedes will be a composer-in-residence with the Drumming GP, for whom he is writing Time poetries, a series of pieces exploring temporal illusions in music. He is also a visiting scholar at the Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation in Ras Al Khaimah, where he is the recipient of a faculty research grant to conduct the project "Exploring the musical traditions of the Shihuh." This latter project consists in recording the musical traditions of this tribe, aiming to better understand the musical practices in the UAE and their trans-cultural relationships.
Carlos Guedes is also Affiliated Associate Professor in Computer Engineering at NYUAD, and Affiliated Associate Professor of Music in Music Technology at NYU Steinhardt.
Job Titles:
- Program Head of Psychology
Job Titles:
- Abu Dhabi Staff Member
- Academic and Student Affairs Specialist
- Academic and Student Affairs Specialist, and Assistant Instructor of Leadership and Public Speaking and Public Presentations
Dharini Parthasarathy was born in Abu Dhabi, UAE and lived there until she left to start her undergraduate degree in 2013. In May 2017, she completed a BS in Electrical Engineering and a BS in Mathematics and Statistics at Miami University, Ohio. During her stay at Miami University, she worked with the International Student and Scholar Services department, the Dean's Office of the College of Engineering, and the Lockheed Martin Leadership Institute. In fall 2017, she started her MA in higher education and student affairs at New York University and a graduate assistantship with the NYUAD Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Community Programs. In January, 2019, she took up the role of Academic and Student Affairs Specialist for the NYU Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Community Programs. In that role, she liaises with students and alumni as they prepare applications for undergraduate and graduate schooling, assists with the Leadership and Public Speaking courses, and coordinates with NYU Abu Dhabi to develop programming for the students.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of the Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Community Programs and Advisor to Leadership at NYU Abu Dhabi
- Executive Director, SMSP Principal Instructor of Leadership and Public Speaking and Public Presentations
Diane C. Yu is the Advisor to Leadership at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and Executive Director of the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Community Programs at NYUAD, which currently consist of the NYUAD Summer Academy, a college preparatory program for Emirati high school students, and the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program (SMSP) for top UAE university students. She teaches leadership classes at NYU New York and in the Summer Academy and SMSP, and public speaking classes for SMSP and NYU Shanghai.
Previously she was the Deputy President of New York University, Managing Counsel at a Fortune 500 company, State Bar of California General Counsel (for whom she won a case in the US Supreme Court), a White House Fellow, and a California Superior Court Commissioner. She attended Oberlin College (BA) and UC Berkeley School of Law (JD). She is Co-Chair of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Board of Directors and has also served on the boards of Oberlin College, American Management Association, and Association of Governing Boards. She served as the White House Fellows Association President and chaired the American Bar Association's (ABA) Commission on Women in the Profession and the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Among her numerous awards are Ten Outstanding Young Women of America, Women's Leadership Award from the Asian American Bar Association of New York, and an honorary doctorate from City University of New York.
Job Titles:
- Program Head of Mathematics
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
- Administrative Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Administrative Staff Member
- Operations Manager
Job Titles:
- Associate Academic Director
Job Titles:
- Administrative Staff Member
- Assistant Dean for Administration
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
- Administrative Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean for Student Success and Curriculum Affairs Professor of Mathematics
Job Titles:
- Journalist
- SMSP Principal Instructor
James Traub is a journalist and scholar specializing in international affairs. He is a columnist and contributor to the website foreignpolicy.com. He worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker from 1993 to 1998 and as a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine from 1998 to 2011. He has also written extensively about national politics, urban affairs, and education. His most recent book is What Was Liberalism?, a history of the liberal idea. His other books include a biography of John Quincy Adams and a study of the UN in the time of Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Traub teaches classes on American foreign policy at NYU's Abu Dhabi campus as well as at NYU's main campus in New York. He is a fellow of the Center on International Cooperation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations
Job Titles:
- Academic and Student Affairs Specialist and Instructor
- Academic and Student Affairs Specialist and Instructor of Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing
- Global Academic Support Coordinator
As a member of the first team of employees on the NYUAD campus, Jonathan has served the student community in a variety of academic and residential life roles: Graduate Resident Assistant, Senior Global Academic Fellow, Academic Resource Center tutor, teaching assistant, and English proficiency assessment consultant for Admissions' Candidate Weekend process. Now, as a member of the NYUAD Community Programs' team for the past five years, he works with the New York-based office staff to support alumni programming and academics at NYU New York, serves as Instructor in the SMSP Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing course, supports Executive Director Diane Yu in her work across NYU's global network, and assisted Summer Academy students with English and Critical Thinking and Writing coursework and individual support as well as college advising and counseling. Jonathan earned his bachelor's degree in film from NYU and his Master's in mental health counseling from NYU Steinhardt.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Staff Member
- Manager of Curriculum Affairs and Special Projects
Job Titles:
- Academic Affairs Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Administrative Staff Member
- Communications and Outreach Manager
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Affiliation
- Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at New York University in Abu Dhabi and Hol
Kemal Celik is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at New York University in Abu Dhabi and holds an appointment with New York University, Tandon School of Engineering as Global Network Assistant Professor. Professor Celik is the director of the Advanced Materials and Building Efficiency Research Laboratory (AMBER Lab) at NYU Abu Dhabi. He received his Ph.D. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, with a major in Structural Engineering, Mechanics & Materials, and two minors in Geoengineering and Material Science & Engineering. He holds MS and BS degrees in Civil Engineering from Istanbul University.
Prior to joining New York University Abu Dhabi, Celik was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and Singapore-Berkeley Building Efficiency and Sustainability in the Tropics (SinBerBEST) program, an international collaboration led by the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Celik's work focuses on construction materials and building energy efficiency to develop sustainable and multi-functional structural materials. To this end, he conducts multi-scale and interdisciplinary research. His research interests include characterization and development of sustainable and energy-efficient construction materials, low carbon cements, alkali-activated cementitious material, multi-functional building envelopes, and prediction and evaluation of daylight distribution through a complex fenestration system with a hybrid-simulation integrating physical- and computational- based data.
His selected and recent achievements are the National Science Foundation (NSF) Award, the ADEK Award for Research Excellence (AARE 2019), Golden Lion at Venice Architecture Biennale, 2021 with National Pavilion of UAE as an exhibitor, NYUAD Research Enhancement Fund Award, New York University Research Challenge Fund, the University of California, Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, University of California, Berkeley Conference Grant, SCMT3 Outstanding Paper Award, Ministry of National Education of Turkey Scholarship, and Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) fellowship.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean of Global Programs
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Director
- Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Affiliation
- News
Khalil Ramadi is an assistant professor of Bioengineering and Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Neuroengineering and Translational Medicine at NYU Abu Dhabi. He is also a Global Network Professor of Biomedical and Mechanical engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. His work focuses on developing new tools and technologies for treatment of a variety of neurologic, endocrine, and immune disorders.
Ramadi was previously a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics from MIT, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering from the Pennsylvania State University.
He is a former Director of MIT Hacking Medicine (HM), a group dedicated to teaching healthcare entrepreneurship and creating novel solutions to pressing healthcare problems. MIT HM programs have spawned 50+ companies worldwide collectively raising $250M+ in funding (as of 2019). Ramadi served as Director of HM in 2016-2017 and founded its Research Division.
Ramadi has been named a TED junior fellow, MIT Sandbox Innovation Fellow, and a Koch Convergence Scholar. He has received multiple honors including the NIH F32 Ruth Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellowship, BMES Career Development Award, MRS Silver Graduate Student Award, MIT IDEAS Global Challenge award, and a NASA Aeronautics Scholarship.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director, Community Outreach and Academic HR
Job Titles:
- Dean of Science / Professor of Physics
Job Titles:
- Producer
- Assistant Professor of Practice of Music Technology Affiliation
- News
Matteo Marciano is a Multi-Platinum record producer, mixer, engineer, composer, and educator with over a decade of experience in the music entertainment industry. His work can be heard in movies, television shows, and albums, including the triple-platinum single "Cups" with Anna Kendrick. Other credits include work for artists such as Idina Menzel, Lang Lang, 2Cellos, Chetty, Jacopo Volpe, Zosia Mamet, Brian Justin Crum, Astral Weeks, and films such as Frozen, Fifty Shades of Grey, Pitch Perfect, John Wick, Despicable Me 2, Turbo, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Duff, Horrible Bosses, and many others.
Matteo Marciano has had responsibilities in the creation and improvement of academic programs in Music Production and Sound Engineering in the US and in Italy, including the Music Production and Sound Engineering Course of the Master of Music from LUISS University of Rome, where currently he holds the position of Lecturer in their summer program. Along with that, Matteo worked as an adjunct professor at The Institute of Audio Research in New York City, where he held a series of in-depth lectures and labs on advanced mixing techniques in a course called Technology of Mixing.
Matteo Marciano holds a BBA in Business Administration Bachelor from L.U.M.S.A. University in Rome, an MMB Master Degree in Music Business from LUISS Business University of Rome, and an Audio Recording & Engineering diploma from N.E.R. Studios. Matteo Marciano is an AVID Certified Pro Tools Instructor and an active member of the A.E.S. - Audio Engineering Society. He holds a Licensed Private Career School Teacher Certificate from The State Education Department of the University of The State of New York.
In addition, to maintain an intensive international career as a mixing engineer, producer, editor, and educator, he works as a music composer for different Music Publishing companies, TV shows, feature films, and commercials in all stages of production, including automatic dialog replacement, sound design, surrounds mixing, and Foley recording.
At NYUAD, he serves as Assistant Professor of Practice of Music Technology, overseeing courses and activities of the Recording Studio while playing a seminal role in its development. During the academic year of 2018 to 2020 as he had served as Assistant Head of the Music Program. During the academic years 2017-2018, he also developed an international partnership with AVID Pro Tools, the world-leading software in the television and video industry, to create television shows, feature films, and commercials, making NYUAD the first University in Abu Dhabi to be an Avid Learning Partner.
Matteo Marciano has redesigned and taught the courses Music Technology Fundamentals and Recording & Production Techniques at NYUAD. He also created and developed new music technology electives, Musical Acoustics, Mixing & Mastering Techniques, Fundamentals of Digital Audio: Introduction to Pro Tools, and Immersive Audio Storytelling for Motion Picture.
Matteo Marciano's research interests lie in Music Cognition and the impact that music mixing has on mental processes underlying musical behaviors. He explores how emotions, environment, cognitive capacity, personality, individual differences, and other factors influence the way we perceive music, as well as the impact of technological advances on Music Mixing Techniques and Recording Technology.
Since coming to NYUAD, Matteo Marciano has been interested in engaging with the local music community and NYUAD community. He created the annual Battle of the Bands, which became a way for NYUAD community students, faculty, and staff to express their music in a competition which had as a final prize the production of a four-song EP at NYUAD Recording Studio fully recorded and produced by students. In Fall 2018, he created the Music Production and Sound Recording Group MPSR (https://musicproduction-nyuad.com), a community of students, artists, musicians, audio engineers, producers, composers, educators, and creative music technologists based at NYU Abu Dhabi. MPSR's mission is to provide a collaborative framework for committed students to apply their musical technological creativity to the development of innovative artistic and technological arts. In Spring 2018, Matteo Marciano started the very first cross-school collaboration between NYUAD music technology students and the NYU Production Lab.
With his immense passion for music, Matteo is dedicated to bring all his experience and audio engineering knowledge to his classes, helping his students to achieve their education and career goals for a brilliant future in the Entertainment Industry and other music technology fields.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Director
- Associate Dean of Engineering for Graduate Affairs
- Professor of Civil
Associate Dean for Graduate Programs; Director of the Research Center for Interacting Urban Networks (CITIES); Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD University of California, Berkeley
monica.menendez@nyu.edu
Monica Menendez is the Associate Dean of Engineering for Graduate Affairs and a Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), as well as a Global Network Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering in New York University (NYU). She is also the Director and Lead PI of the NYUAD Research Center for Interacting Urban Networks (CITIES); and the recipient of the NYUAD Distinguished Research Award for 2021.
Between 2010 and 2017, Monica was the Director of the research group Traffic Engineering at ETH Zurich. Prior to that, she was a management consultant at Bain & Company. She joined Bain after receiving a PhD and a MSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2006. During her studies there, she received, among other awards, an NSF Fellowship and the Gordon F. Newell Award. In total, she is the recipient of more than 20 scholarships and awards from well-known and prestigious organizations, professional societies, and universities. Monica also holds a dual degree in Civil Engineering and Architectural Engineering from the University of Miami, from where she graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2002.
Her research interests include monitoring, modeling, and control of multimodal transportation systems, considering new technologies and data sources. She is an active reviewer for over 20 journals, and a member of multiple editorial boards for top journals in Transportation. She is also a member of a number of international organizations, including the International Advisory Committee of the International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT), and the Mohammed bin Rashid Academy of Scientists (MBRAS). Monica is the author of over 90 peer-reviewed journal publications and over 200 conference contributions, book chapters, editorials, and technical reports. In the last five years, five of the papers that she has co-authored, have received best-paper awards.
Job Titles:
- Program Head of Computer Science Professor of Computer Science
Job Titles:
- Abu Dhabi Staff Member
- Senior Director
Dr. Wael Rabeh received his PhD in Biochemistry in the lab of Professor Paul F. Cook in the field of enzymology where he characterized the last enzymatic reaction of the cysteine biosynthetic pathway in Salmonella typhimurium. In 2005, Rabeh joined the Structural Genomic Consortium (SGC) at the University of Toronto as a post-doctoral fellow, where he characterized the 3D structure of human proteins with medical relevance using X-ray crystallography. To further expand his expertise in the field of protein chemistry, in 2007, Rabeh joined the lab of Dr. Gergely Lukacs at McGill University for the characterization of a membrane channel that is the main cause of Cystic Fibrosis.
Dr. Rabeh's research is devoted to the characterization of proteins' structure and a mechanism to understand their biological function. Major area of his research focus is devoted to the characterization of disease-causing mechanism of proteins with medical relevance to assist in the discovery and design of new therapeutics using proteins' structural information and computer simulation. Protein targets include human Hexokinase 2 that is required for tumor initiation and growth. As for his contribution in the field of bioluminescence, the laboratory of Rabeh is characterizing the color producing mechanism of the luciferase reaction from different species with different colors of light.
Peter Vining is serving his sixth year as an Instructor for US Foreign Policy. Peter also teaches for the NYUAD Summer Academy, and is a PhD candidate in New York University's Department of Politics where he studies political violence. Peter's research focuses on strategies for countering violent extremism and post-conflict reintegration of former militants. His dissertation research is the design and evaluation of a preventing violent extremism field experiment in Bangladesh. A recipient of the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship, Peter completed his MA at Duke University and BS/BA at The Pennsylvania State University.
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs Program Head of Biology Associate Professor of Biology
Job Titles:
- Abu Dhabi Staff Member
- Assistant Manager for Programming and Strategy
Job Titles:
- Manager of Academic Programs
Job Titles:
- Assistant Instructor of Leadership and Public Speaking and Public Presentations
Reem is a recent Emirati graduate from Zayed University with a Bachelor's degree in psychology and human services. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in public policy at the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government. She is an alumnus of the Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Scholars Program at NYUAD from the 2017-2018 batch. Reem has worked as a research coordinator for an autism study at Al Jalila Children's Speciality Hospital in Dubai, written articles for Gulf News on special pieces covering psychology related matters in the UAE, and now works as an assistant instructor for leadership and public speaking for the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Community Programs at NYUAD.
Job Titles:
- Administrative Coordinator
- Administrative Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Professor of Practice of Art History Affiliation
Salwa Mikdadi specializes in the history of modern and contemporary art of the Arab world. Prior to joining the NYUAD, Mikdadi worked at Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority where she established the professional development program for museum professionals including a customized executive program (2012 - 2014) and was a lecturer at the Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi in the postgraduate program - History of Art and Museum Studies (2010-May 2014). Mikdadi was the Executive Director of the Arts and Culture Program at the Emirates Foundation in Abu Dhabi (2009-2012).
She wrote the reference guide on the history of the twentieth-century art of West Asia, North Africa and Egypt for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Timeline web pages and is the editor and co-editors of several publications on the subject. She conducted research in Jordan, the West Bank, UAE, Syria, and Lebanon on the governance and management of museums and art institutions. Mikdadi curated several exhibitions including the first Palestinian collateral exhibition at the Venice Biennial in 2009. She was the co-founder and director of the Cultural & Visual Arts Resource/ICWA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the study and exhibit of the art of the Arab world in the United States (1988-2006). Mikdadi is a founding board member of the Association of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab world, Iran and Turkey.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Literature and Art History Global Network Professor of Literature and Art History Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
- Projects
Shamoon Zamir works in the areas of literature, photography and intellectual history. His study of the African American writer W.E.B. Du Bois explored literature's dialogues with philosophy and sociology and his new book, The Gift of the Face, explores the relationship of aesthetics and ethics in the work of the early twentieth-century photographer Edward S. Curtis and examines the ways in which image and text, art and science, pictorialist photography and anthropology come together in Curtis's portraits of Native Americans.
Prof. Zamir has in addition published on twentieth-century African American and Native American fiction and on modern poetry and has translated short stories from Urdu. He was the co-founder of Talus, a small press and journal specializing in poetry, contemporary international writing and cultural studies and is a series editor for American Studies: Culture, Society & the Arts.
His current projects include studies in twentieth-century American photography and literature. He is also the Director of Akkasah: Center for Photography at NYUAD. The center is developing a photographic archive, and also a conference and exhibition series devoted to photography, with a primary focus on the Middle East.
Prof. Zamir studied English and American literatures and American Studies at the University of London and has taught at the University of Chicago, York University and the University of London before joining NYUAD.
Job Titles:
- Director, Academic and Research Programs
Job Titles:
- Director, Community and Education Engagement
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Chemistry Affiliation
Job Titles:
- Abu Dhabi Staff Member
- Assistant Manager of Administration
- Assistant Manager, Administration and Alumni Affairs and Instructor of Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing
Yusuf Samara is the Assistant Manager of Administration and Alumni Affairs for the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Community Programs at NYU Abu Dhabi. In this capacity, he coordinates alumni programming and outreach for both the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program and the NYUAD Summer Academy. Yusuf is also an Instructor of the Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing course for the Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Scholars Program. Previously, Yusuf worked in higher education administration in admissions, registrar, and financial aid, and he also spent several years working with high school students in the field of test preparation. Yusuf holds a Bachelor's degree from Yale University and a Master's degree in higher education from Pennsylvania State University