Source: Yacoub Najjar, 785-532-1586, ea4146@k-state.edu
Pronouncer: Yacoub Najjar is Yah-coob Nah-jhar
News release prepared by: Mary Rankin, 785-532-6725, mrankin@k-state.edu
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
YACOUB NAJJAR TO SERVE AS INTERIM HEAD OF K-STATE'S DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
MANHATTAN -- Yacoub Najjar has been named interim head of the department of civil engineering at Kansas State University, effective July 13.
Najjar joined the K-State College of Engineering as an assistant professor of civil engineering in 1993, became an associate professor of civil engineering in 1997 and a full professor in 2003.
Prior to coming to K-State, he had been an assistant professor in the department of civil, mechanical and environmental engineering at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Najjar holds three civil engineering degrees: a bachelor's from Yarmouk University in Jordan, and a master's and a doctorate from the University of Oklahoma. His areas of interest are geo-engineering systems, soil-structure interaction, computational neural networks and transportation geo-techniques.
"We are confident the department will maintain its strong reputation and continue to move forward under Professor Najjar's leadership," said John English, dean of the College of Engineering. "He brings an outstanding set of academic and leadership qualities to the position."
Najjar serves on four committees of the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council, including chairing the Subcommittee on Neural Nets and Other Computational Intelligence-Based Modeling. He holds three committee posts with the American Society of Civil Engineers, serves on the editorial boards of two international journals and is a member of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society.
He replaces James Koelliker, who had served as interim head of civil engineering since June 2007.