Kemal Oflazer and Selma Limam-Mansar have been appointed associate dean of research and associate dean of education, respectively, at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ).
A faculty member in computer science at CMUQ, Oflazer obtained his doctorate in computer science from CMU. Specialising in the area of natural language processing (NLP), he is an active member of the research community and has widely published his work in journals and at conferences.
Since 2008, Oflazer has been leading the NLP lab at CMUQ. Alongside a team of faculty members and research associates, he has been investigating problems related to multilingual processing and machine translation with a special focus on improving Arabic language technology and language learning.
Oflazer has received six research projects funded by the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) National Priorities Research Programme (NPRP) as either a lead or co-lead investigator.
Limam-Mansar, a faculty member in information systems, holds a PhD from L’Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble in France. She joined CMUQ in 2007 to help launch the information systems programme and was awarded the meritorious teaching award in 2010. Her research focuses on business process management, particularly on tools and best practices in business process design and re-engineering.
Limam-Mansar also founded ‘Ibtikar’ (Arabic for ‘innovation’), an information systems high school outreach programme that engages students to design creative solutions to tackle important socio-cultural challenges facing the community.
Ibtikar was awarded the Education City sustainability award in 2011 for excellence in community service. In June 2013, she founded the first Qatar Chapter of the Association for Information Systems (QRAIS), of which she is the current president.
“Kemal and Selma are established academics and administrators with an excellent track record in research and education. Their expertise will be an asset to Carnegie Mellon as we continue to grow and develop our programmes,” said Ilker Baybars, dean of CMUQ.
In December, John O’Brien, associate professor of accounting at Carnegie Mellon Qatar, was appointed associate dean, where he will be responsible for assisting the Dean’s office with faculty affairs. O’Brien earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota in the US and has been with the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business since 1984.
In addition to the recent leadership appointments, Chadi Aoun has joined CMUQ as an associate professor in information systems. Aoun earned his doctorate from the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Selma Limam-Mansar and Kemal Oflazer
