Appointment notice: Associate Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations)

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Dr. Mourad El-Gamal to the position of Associate Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations), effective March 1, 2007.

Dr. El-Gamal is a William Dawson Scholar with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the McGill Institute for Advanced Materials (MIAM). He has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards at McGill University and brings to his new position a solid research background that spans a wide spectrum of technical areas, combined with industrial, managerial and leadership experiences, as well as a track record of evaluating research in Canada, the US, and in Europe.

Dr. El-Gamal's research interests are in micro and nano scale integrated electronics and mechanical systems, with a special interest in advanced materials. His research focuses on the combination of these technologies to produce new knowledge and innovative solutions for a wide range of applications, including wireless communications systems, health care and aerospace. He has published over 60 technical articles and two book chapters, and his team has received several research awards, including the Strategic Microelectronics Industrial Collaboration Award of the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation. He holds one patent.

In collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of medical and engineering researchers at the University of Calgary, the Calgary Health Region (CHR) and Carleton University, Dr. El-Gamal's group is developing the future generation of wireless medical devices, to improve patients' health care and safety. Through partnerships with several researchers in Quebec universities, his team is developing novel sensing and actuating technologies for the aerospace industry.

Currently, Dr. El-Gamal is a member of NSERC's Communications, Computers, and Components Engineering grant selection committee. He is an Associate Editor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transactions on Circuits and Systems, a member of the executive committee of the Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM), and the Chair of the Emerging Technologies subcommittee of the IEEE 2007 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC).

He has served on the US National Science Foundation (NSF) panel on Micro and Nano Systems, the Computing Processes and Artifacts panel, and on both the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Regroupement Stratégique en Microélectronique du Québec (ReSMiQ), funded by the Fonds Québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies (FQRNT).

Dr. El-Gamal will be working with the Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations) to advance unified research policies and practices across the University and to advance the quality, impact and synergies of research throughout research networks at the local, regional, national and international levels.

Please join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Mourad El-Gamal in his new position.

Sincerely,

Denis Thérien
Vice-Principal (Research and International Relations)