New Position for Hesham El Gamal (ECE Ph.D. ’99)

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ECE alumnus Hesham El Gamal (Ph.D. ’99) has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney. His new position will begin in July 2024. He is currently the Deputy Dean and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs.

Prior to joining the University of Sydney, El Gamal served as the Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ohio State University and Co-Director of the Institute of Cybersecurity and Digital Trust. El Gamal is a well renowned expert in information theory and wireless communications with 16 US patents. His research interests include information theory, machine learning, quantum information and mobile communication, as well as proactive communications, space-time coding and decoding, and graphical code design. He is a Fellow of IEEE and the US National Academy of Inventors.

In 2011, while at Ohio State, El Gamal co-founded an information technology company, inmobly, as a spin-off from his research at Ohio State. The company is successful in multiple areas, including mobile technology, SaaS, machine learning, video, multimedia and digital advertising. He is currently the company’s Chief Technical Officer.

Upon assuming his new role, El Gamal has said that he will focus on four key areas for his department: greater collaboration both within and outside the University; promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, student-centric teaching involving the most up-to-date research, and encouraging a culture of “successful” failure, inspiring students to take risks and learn from experience. His knowledge of both academia and industry-related challenges will offer a wealth of experience to students.

Published November 27, 2023