University Governance

​Professor Naif Bejad Almutairi is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Scientific research since 2018. In 2011-2022, he was the Director of the Arab Open University in Kuwait.  He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2002 from North Carolina State University, USA, with a primary focus in Network-Based Control. After earning his Ph.D. degree, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering in Kuwait University (from 2002 to 2006), and was later promoted to Associate Professor where he served for another five years (from 2006 to 2011) at the same department. In addition, Prof. Almutairi has also furthered his academic status from Associate Professor to Professor in Electrical Engineering in 2017. Since joining the AOU in 2011, major developments have been made in many aspects such as buildings, academic programs, student capacity and financial aspects,. A major breakthrough has been the noticeable increase in student capacity from 5000 to 8000 students in 2012, and recently to 9400 students in 2022. As a Vice President for Academic Affairs and scientific research, he plays an important role at the Headquarter level, since he is responsible for managing and coordinating all academic aspects of all University branches in the nine different Arab countries. Since his enrollment in this position, he has developed new academic bylaws and has adapted new operational systems to facilitate the workflow between the branches and the headquarter.

Prof. Al-Jarrah received the B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Irbid, Jordan in 1991, M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ohio State University in 1994 and 1996, respectively. He joined JUST in 1996 as an assistant professor. Then he served from 1998 to 2000 as the Chairman of the Computer Engineering Department, from 2000 to 2004 as the Dean of the Faculty of Computer and Information Technology, from 2004 to 2010 as the Assistant President for ICT, and from 2010 to 2013 as the Vice President. Prof. Al-Jarrah served as the President of Amman Arab University from 2014 to 2016 and as the President of Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) from 2016 to 2017. In 2018, he joined Arab Open University as the Vice President for planning and development and CIO.

Professor Al-Jarrah has taught courses in Computer Science and Engineering. He has published 72 technical papers in well-reputed international journals and conferences. During his career, he has supervised more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students. He as chaired and co-chaired several international conferences and he has served in the editorial board and as associated editor for more than one international journal. Prof. Al-Jarrah has managed several national and international research grants that valued more than five million USD. He has served as a consultant to the ministers of education and higher education, and to the UNESCO Amman office. He has received several national and international awards in recognition of his achievements.