Bulletin - American University of Beirut

as a member of this important committee, as the only member
from outside North America and Europe. “This,” noted
Ziyadeh, “bodes well for AUB.”
Dr. Mohamed H. Sayegh, Raja N. Khuri Dean of the
Faculty of Medicine at AUB, congratulating Ziyadeh, said the
appointment makes AUB a key player in international medical
education.
The IFOM program is a newly-established collaborative
effort between the National Board of Medical Examiners, the
Foundation for the Advancement of International Medical
Education and Research, and universities outside North
America for developing internationally accepted means of
measuring knowledge expected of undergraduate medical
students.
The IFOM Oversight Committee will oversee test delivery,
scoring, and reporting in much the same way as the
NBME’s US Medical Licensing Exam is administered.
The committee is responsible for approving assessment
instruments and overseeing test development for medical
students enrolled in medical schools worldwide, introducing
program policies, and setting standards for minimally
acceptable and honors-level performance.
Medical students from the Faculty of Medicine at AUB
will be part of a pilot project enabling
them to sit for the IFOM
examination this year.
The IFOM Clinical Medicine
examination will soon become
operational, said Ziyadeh, and
the IFOM examination is currently
under development. The committee
consists of nine members—four
Dr. F. N. Ziyadeh
from the United States, four from Europe, and Ziyadeh, who
represents other regions of the world.
The first meeting of IFOM will take place in at the
headquarters of the NBME in Philadelphia in July 2010.
Establishing international standards for medical education
and overseeing the IFOM exam to be administered in medical
schools outside the United States will be the central issues
of discussion.
Ziyadeh, a member of the American Society for Clinical
Investigation and the American Association of Physicians,
formerly served as the physician-secretary of the American
Board of Internal Medicine-Nephrology for eight years (1995-
2002), and more recently (2006-09), as associate dean for
Academic Affairs in AUB’s Faculty of Medicine
Chemistry chairperson releases first
internationally-published book in the
department’s history
Book’s dust
jacket
Thermodynamics is like a frog; it never evolves, according
to AUB’s Chemistry Department chairperson.
But with his new book, Chemical Thermodynamics:
With Examples for Nonequilibrium Processes, Mazen Al-
Ghoul is hoping that will change.
The world’s view of thermodynamics–the study of energy
conversion between heat and mechanical work–has not
changed much in 200 years, according to Al-Ghoul.
“But this book has a new approach, a new philosophy,”
he told the AUB Bulletin.
Whereas other publications have studied thermodynamics
in ideal terms, Al-Ghoul’s research aimed at tackling
systems in nonequilibrium.
Everything on earth is in a state of nonequilibrium,
Al-Ghoul explained, as everything is exposed to the sun and
thus receives a constant input of energy.
“It’s easy to tackle ideal systems at equilibrium, but
when trying to make sense of irreversible, everyday phenomena
at nonequilibrium, difficulties arise,” he said. “This
book attempts to bridge the gap between the ideal and the
natural by approaching the problem in a different manner.”
Al-Ghoul’s book–the first ever to be published internationally
from AUB’s Chemistry Department–is based on a
function called calortropy, or heat evolution, which forms a
way to measure the entropy (or chaos) in nonequilibrium
phenomena. In this way, thermodynamics becomes applicable
to everyday situations.
Al-Ghoul has already begun teaching his students
about calortropy in his chemistry classes and dedicated his
book to future students of chemistry.
“We always had the students in mind when writing this
book. It is a joy to be able to introduce new material that
will later become applicable in the classroom,” he said.
Al-Ghoul paid tribute to his wife, Rana, and co-author
Byung Chan Eu, from McGill University, adding he was looking
Continued
forward to the book’s publication at the end of August.
“I’m extremely happy about this achievement, especially
because it is the culmination of five years of hard work. The
AUB graduate wins international
entrepreneur award
A Canadian software company, founded and headed by an
AUB graduate, has won an international entrepreneurial
competition.
Jad Hussein Yaghi, founder and chief executive officer
of Verold Inc., collected the prestigious TiEQuest business
prize, an annual venture organized by Canadian networking
group The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).
Verold Inc., an upstart company based in Toronto, is set
to receive $50,000 in cash and $31,000 in services by way
of reward. The award was announced on April 16, 2010.
Yaghi graduated from AUB in 1999 with a BE degree in
Computer and Communication Engineering before emigrating
to Canada where he received an MBA in 2007 from the
University of Toronto.
He worked as a consultant for Boston-based management
consultancy firm Monitor Group until the establishment
of Verold Inc. in 2009. The company produces powerful
software aimed at powering the next
generation of 3D computer content. In
Prize winner Jad Yaghi
also commercializes patented software.
“Our mission is to make it easy, quick and inexpensive
to create 3D content for media consumption; by both professionals
and amateurs, and in the long term, to provide them
with a means to create their own virtual and augmented
reality worlds and games,” Yaghi told a local newspaper
after collecting his award.
Yaghi’s father, Hussein Yaghi, was an associate professor
in the Department of Education at AUB from 1990
through 2005.
His company has received serious interest from
investors following its TiEQuest award. It is set to unveil
new software products to more than 4000 international
entrepreneurs in May during an exhibition in Silicon Valley,
California.
AUB student Najla Khatib grabs $11,000
leadership award
Najla Khatib, an AUB graduate student in public health,
picked up the annual AUB BCG Promising Leader Award, at
a ceremony held on campus on June 4, 2010.
The AUB BCG Promising Leader Award was created
last year by the American University of Beirut and Boston
Consulting Group (BCG) to help celebrate and develop future
leaders from AUB. The award also offers the recipient
the opportunity for a full-time job interview at BCG along
with an $11,000 cash prize.
BCG is the fastest-growing global management consulting
firm serving the Middle East and North Africa from
Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
The award was presented to Khatib by Dean of Student
Affairs Maroun Kisirwani and Assistant Vice President of
Development Imad Baalbaki from AUB and Ziad El Baba
from BCG.
“Such awards offer students the motivation to apply
what they learn in the classroom to real-life situations, obstacles,
and challenges,” said Baalbaki.
“To stand out from among 200 applicants was no easy
last year especially was tedious and stressful, but now that
my book is being released, I can enjoy the fruits of my
labor,” he said.
feat,” said Baalbaki, referring to Khatib, “particularly since
the evaluation process was quite rigorous, requiring an interview,
essays, and solving a business case. . . But Najla’s
essay on leadership and empowerment, based on her own
experience in community work and awareness campaigns,
was excellent, and Najla certainly deserves this award.”
Kisirwani concurred, adding: “This award represents
an incentive for every ambitious student to achieve their
higher aspirations.”
Sven-Olaf Vathje, Partner & Managing Director at BCG
and leader of BCG’s Middle East Recruiting team, said: “We
are delighted to present this year’s award to Najla Khatib.
She stood out from a group of over 200 applicants, with
excellent credentials including outstanding leadership experience
and a mix of academic and non-academic activities.”
Vathje added: “At BCG we believe that good leaders
can come from a variety of backgrounds. This creates
unique team diversity and is one of the cornerstones of
BCG’s success. It is also why BCG has hired from many different
disciplines at AUB including engineering, business,
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