Board of Directors

Hala Taweel President
Diego Hidalgo Director
Anne-Marie Codur Director
Farouk El-Baz Director
Roy Nirschel Director

Board of Advisors

Andre Azoulay
Ali Belhaj
Samia Farouki
Devens Hamlen
Rita Hauser
Robert Karam
Hasan Khan
Leah McIntosh
Mark Mendell
Timothy Phillips
William Prinzivalli
Henry Rosovsky
George Salem
Fuad Safwat
Oliver Stalter
Henry Steiner
Ahmed Snoussi
Mustafa Terrab
Desmond Tutu
James Zogby

Hala Taweel President
Hala Taweel has served as President of the Center for Higher Education in the Middle East Inc. since July 1997. Born in Jerusalem, Ms Taweel was raised in Nablus and Ramallah. She holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her first Masters in Computer Science/Human Science was received from Paris VIII University, and she holds a Diploma of Superior Diplomatic and Strategic Studies from the Center for Law and Defense at Paris V University.

Anne-Marie Codur Director
Anne-Marie Codur was a co-founder of the University of the Middle East Project in 1996-97. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). A French citizen with Moroccan origins, she has worked in the field of sustainable development policies and practices in developing countries and in particular in North Africa. Dr. Codur has been a Consultant on Population and Environment in the Maghreb, for the United Nations Fund for Population in Rabat, Morocco, and has extensively taught and given conferences on sustainable development in North Africa, associated with the MED-CAMPUS program of the European Community linking universities from the North and the South of the Mediterranean. Dr. Codur has been an Associate Researcher at the Center for Population Studies at Harvard University and the Global Development and Environmental Institute at Tufts University.

Farouk El-Baz Director
Farouk El-Baz is Research Professor and Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. He is Adjunct Professor of Geology at the Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. Dr. El-Baz is also a Member of the Board of Trustees of the Geological Society of America Foundation, Boulder CO. El-Baz taught geology at Assiut University, Egypt and the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. El-Baz is President of the Arab Society of Desert Research. He has received NASA's Apollo Achievement Award, Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and Special Recognition Award; the Certificate of Merit of the World Aerospace Education Organization; and the Arab Republic of Egypt Order of Merit - First Class. He also received the 1989 Outstanding Achievement Award of the Egypt-America Organization, and the 1992 Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also received the 1996 Michael T. Halbouty Human Needs Award of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Dr. El-Baz joined UME Board of Directors in December of 2002.

Diego Hidalgo Director
President of the Fundación de Relaciones Internacionales y Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE); Chairman of the Board of the University of Extremadura in Spain; Chairman of the DFC Group; and President and Managing Director of Alianza Editorial, a book publisher. He has also been Chief of the Africa Division and an Operations Officer at the World Bank. He is the author of El Futuro de España (1996) and Europe: Globalization and Monetary Union (1998). He was educated in law at the University of Madrid and holds a master's in business administration from the Harvard Business School. From 1994 to 1995 he was a fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard where he is now a member of its Visiting Committee. For the last three years he has been an associate of Harvard's Center for European Studies. He is currently carrying out doctoral studies in political sciences at the City University of New York. He lives with his wife, Melania Barange, and children in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Roy Nirschel Director
Dr. Roy J. Nirschel was appointed the 8th President of Roger Williams University in 2001. He previously served as President of Newbury College and as Vice President at the University of Miami. During his tenure, applications to Roger Williams University have increased 100 percent, the acceptance rate has improved 27 percent and the University endowment has grown from $37M to $120M. The University is now ranked in the top ten in its category in US News & World Report. Dr. Nirschel earned a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Miami, as well as a Master in Public Administration degree from the university. He is a graduate of Southern Connecticut State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in History and Secondary Education. His doctoral dissertation, “Charitable Giving as Obligation or Option”, was recognized in 1997 with the prestigious Grenzebach Award as the top dissertation in the country in the field of philanthropy. He was the first member of his family to attend college and has been recognized by Southern Connecticut State University with the 2004 Alumnus of Distinction award and is an honoree of the prestigious Stamford High School “Wall of Fame”. Dr. Nirschel is active in numerous civic organizations and is a board member of the National Chamber Foundation, Capital Properties, Rhode Island Campus Compact and Chairman of the Board for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation Endowment Fund. An avid hiker, he has trekked the Inca Trail in Peru and in 2006 climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. His efforts at Roger Williams University and its transformation were the subject of recent feature articles in the Providence Journal and University Business magazine, where he was cited as “one of the five rising stars in higher education”. He is the father of three, including a recent graduate of Roger Williams University.


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