Hassan Diab

Biography

H.E. Professor Hassan B. Diab

Professor Diab is a Lebanese academic, professor, engineer, executive, and politician with over 33 years in academia including almost 20 years in executive roles leading organizations across government, academic, and non-profit sectors. He served as the 26th President of the Council of Ministers of Lebanon and was the first Prime Minister in the history of the MENA region to form a cabinet with 30% female ministers (6 out of 20). He took on a Herculean task by serving as Prime Minister (19 Dec 2019 - 10 Sept 2021) during the worst crises period in Lebanese history and managed to pass many decrees and laws on anti-corruption. His technocrat cabinet, an exception in Lebanese politics and the closest to the specification of a technocrat cabinet in the history of Lebanon, approved for the first time in Lebanese history forensic audit on the central bank as well as the first National Reform Plan to address the economic, financial and social problems resulting from three decades of mismanagement, a plan which was commended by many including the UN, EU, World Bank, and the IMF. He strongly believes effective leadership means having moral authority rather than formal authority and that leadership is about creating leaders, not followers.

On 13 June 2011, he was appointed as Minister of the Ministry of Education & Higher Education (MEHE) in the Lebanese Cabinet to take over the largest ministry in Lebanon. He was a technocrat minister which was an anomaly in Lebanese politics. Professor Diab was the 70th minister during 2011-2014 at a time when Lebanon was celebrating its 70th anniversary (2013) since independence (1943). The only one out of the 70 ministers who assumed this position and was also a professor and Vice President at a top university (American University of Beirut) in the MENA region (according to QS 2018 results). This allowed him to put partisan politics aside and practice national politics that fulfilled many achievements for the benefit of the education sector in the country. During his term an unprecedented number of accomplishments were realized including a new Higher Education (HE) law to replace a 40-year-old one. He also passed the Community Service decree for the first time, which required high school students to serve 60 hours of community service, creating hope through promoting the culture of volunteerism. Additionally, after two and a half years of implementing reforms, the 2013 World Economic Forum report (p. 229), gave Lebanon the following ranking in HE (out of 144 countries): (i) Quality of Management Schools ranked 13th, (ii) Quality of Education ranked 10th, and
(iii) Quality of Math and Science education ranked 4th which was only preceded by Singapore, Finland, and Belgium.

He is an advocate for educational reform in Lebanon and authored books and papers on the topic. His passion is empowering youth as mentioned in many of his keynote speeches as well as in an interview with Rt. Hon. Keith Vaz on Lyca Radio, London, broadcasted on January 30, 2022 on “Talking Points”. He served as Vice President (Oct 2006 - Jan 2020) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and as Professor of Computer Engineering (1985-2020) at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering & Architecture, with 15 years of executive administrative and leadership experience. As VP, he signed and led around 80 projects in 20 countries per year. At 30, he was the youngest to serve as AUB Senator for six years, and one of the youngest in AUB’s around 160-year history to be promoted, at the age of 37, to the rank of full Professor. Professor Diab has over 150 publications in internationally refereed journals & conferences. He is a registered Chartered Engineer in the Engineering Council, UK, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), UK. At 35, he was Fellow at the Institute of Engineers, Australia with only 6.6% of its members in this grade; and Fellow of IET at the age of 42, with only 6.6% of the 150,000 members holding this grade at the time and an average age of 66. His cross-sector experience makes him a valuable advisor to corporations.

Professor Diab was Founding President of Dhofar University (DU) and Founding Dean of the School of Engineering at DU (2004-06), Sultanate of Oman. He was the youngest to become university president in Oman at 44. Moreover, DU was the first private university in Oman to receive institutional accreditation from the Omani Accreditation Council. On 21 September 2022, he received the Lebanese Order of Merit: Grand Cordon Grade from the Lebanese President. He accumulated over 30 national/international awards and honors, and was invited for inclusion in over 40 international biographies with over 100 citations including Who’s Who in the World, and Who’s Who in Science & Engineering. He has delivered over 200 keynote speeches and was invited to the “2nd Biennial Festival of Thinkers,” Abu Dhabi, as one of 90 World Thinkers together with 20 NOBEL Prize Laureates in October 2007. He is Founder and President of the Rifca Taji Foundation Charity NGO which has three pillars: Women Empowerment, Community Service, and Education. He strongly supports women empowerment, diversity, as well as inclusion, and served on many boards including Global Council for Tolerance and Peace, Social Welfare Institutions, Academy for Cultural Diplomacy, and the Southern New Hampshire University’s Global Education Movement (GEM). His career reflects a demonstrated track record in leading large-scale organizations, mitigating risk through effective change management, developing strategic partnerships, managing projects in over 30 countries, and navigating crisis through strong communications. Full CV (165 pages) can be accessed by pressing this link.

Academic

Professor Hassan Diab began his career as an academic at the American University of Beirut (AUB) shortly after acquiring his PhD in computer engineering. During his time there, he assumed the roles of educator, researcher, and administrator, and contributed to the university’s plans to impact higher education in the region and beyond. His career at the university lasted 34 years.

OVERVIEW

He first joined AUB’s Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (FEA) as an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in 1985. He was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 1991 and then to full professor in 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he chaired the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), which was the largest department at AUB. In 2004, he was seconded by AUB to be the Founding President of Dhofar University (DU) in Salalah, Sultanate of Oman, also serving as dean of DU’s College of Engineering until 2006 and as a member on their Board of Trustees until 2013. In 2006, he was chosen as Vice President (VP) for Regional External Programs (REP) at AUB and continued in this role until 2011, the year he was appointed minister of education. He resumed his work at AUB as VP for REP in 2013 after the cabinet signed a decree of resignation in March of that year. He left AUB in February 2020 after he successfully formed his cabinet of ministers, having been appointed Lebanon’s prime minister in December 2019.

WORK & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

During his time at the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at AUB, he prepared and taught over 20 courses, both graduate and undergraduate, of which nearly 70% were in his direct area of expertise in computer engineering. He also supervised/co-supervised 78 research projects, refereed over 300 papers, chaired several conferences, and served as member on over 50 organizing committees of international conferences. Additionally, he served as associate editor or member of advisory/editorial board on five international journals.

He was the only faculty member that had a bachelor in communications engineering and a PhD in computer engineering, Accordingly, he played a pivotal role in launching the Computer and Communications Engineering (CCE) program at AUB in 1986, which became one of the most sought-after undergraduate programs at AUB in terms of applicant numbers and has been replicated by dozens of universities in the region.

During his tenure as chairman of ECE, the department grew by 37% in terms of student numbers and 20% in terms of faculty members. During his term, the department restructured all of its programs, including two undergraduate programs to conform with ABET EC2000. It also introduced a new graduate program, added 16 new courses, proposed a new PhD program in computer engineering, and recommended a new multidisciplinary program in information systems and software engineering.

He and an AUB team, as part of a REP project, played a critical role in the work that led to Dhofar University (DU) becoming the first private university in Oman to receive the initial phase of institutional accreditation. He was also able to secure an annual research budget for DU faculty of around $1 million while chairing DU’s research board.

As VP for REP at AUB, he saw the successful implementation of hundreds of projects, with a fourfold increase in REP’s annual number of projects and geographic outreach. Implemented projects include establishing universities (e.g., American University of Sharjah) or assisting universities (e.g., Princess Noora University). This not only allowed AUB to leave a positive impact on higher education in the region, but also secured additional revenue streams and resulted in millions of dollars in endowments and fund-raising for the university.

REREARCH INTERESTS

Professor Diab’s passion for research can be traced back to his university years where his work as a PhD student resulted in a parallel processing system that was successfully marketed by his university. His years in academia fanned his passion for research and his roles in public office expanded his areas of interest. As for research interests in his specialty of computer engineering, these include cryptography on high performance computer systems, modeling and simulation of parallel processing systems, embedded systems, reconfigurable computing, simulation of parallel applications, and system simulation using fuzzy logic control. Additionally, his interests were directly shaped by his experience as an educator and his role as education minister to include higher education in the region and global issues in education. Specific research areas of interest to him in education are the application of simulation to engineering education, educational development, educational planning with governments and institutions in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education, as well as entrepreneurship in education.