Bayan Sharif聽currently serves as the聽Provost聽of Khalifa University, a role he formally assumed in 2021 after serving as Acting Provost since 2018. As the university鈥檚 chief academic officer, he oversees strategic academic planning, faculty affairs, and research development across all colleges and departments.
Prior to his appointment as Provost, Prof. Sharif held key leadership roles including聽Dean of the College of Engineering聽at Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research (KUSTAR) beginning in 2012, and continued in that capacity following the university鈥檚 merger in 2017. His academic career spans over three decades, with a strong foundation in engineering and digital communications.
He earned his Bachelor鈥檚 and Doctorate degrees from Queen鈥檚 University of Belfast and Ulster University, Northern Ireland, in 1984 and 1988 respectively. Following a Research Fellowship at Queen鈥檚 University, he joined Newcastle University in the UK in 1990, where he was promoted to Full Professor in Digital Communications in 2000. In recognition of his research contributions, he was awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) in Engineering by Newcastle University in 2013 for his thesis on signal processing and optimization algorithms for acoustic and radio communications.
Before joining Khalifa University, Prof. Sharif served as Head of the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at Newcastle University for seven years. He also led the Communications and Signal Processing Research Group (CSP), where he established SEALAB鈥攁 research lab focused on sensors, electromagnetics, and acoustics.
His research interests include digital communications, DSP algorithms for receiver structures, and wireless network optimization. He has supervised over 50 PhD students and authored more than 300 publications. He has also led major research initiatives funded by UK, EU, and industry partners totaling over $8 million. In 2018, he served as Executive Chair of IEEE GLOBECOM, the flagship conference held for the first time in the region. Prof. Sharif is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IET.
