The news · 15 October 2026 · 3 min read
A 2.5 million dollar gift from Fuad and Rula Tamer creates the Rula and Fuad Tamer Chair in Engineering Artificial Intelligence at the American University of Beirut. The university says it is looking for someone in physical AI.
On 6 October 2026 the American University of Beirut announced a 2.5 million dollar gift from Fuad "Ford" Tamer to establish the Rula and Fuad Tamer Chair in Engineering Artificial Intelligence. Tamer first announced the gift in March 2026, at the close of his keynote at the AUB North American Technology Conference in Palo Alto.
The chair has its primary appointment at the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture and a secondary appointment at AUB's new School of Computing and Data Sciences, which admits its first students in fall 2027.
The job, as AUB describes it: undergraduate and graduate teaching, curriculum development and mentorship, work across engineering, computing, medicine, business and the natural sciences, and partnerships with industry, government and international research organisations. AUB has started recruiting. President Fadlo R. Khuri said the university is seeking "someone with exceptional credentials in the field of physical AI."
Fuad Tamer holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from AUB, class of 1983, and an MS and PhD in engineering from MIT. He spent 35 years in semiconductors and software and led Inphi as president and CEO for more than nine years, until its merger with Marvell Technology. Rula Tamer attended AUB and is president of the board of SEAL, Social and Economic Action for Lebanon. Her father, Dr Samir Najjar, was dean of AUB's Faculty of Medicine from 1994 to 2000.
WIPO's Global Innovation Index 2026 puts Lebanon 4th of 139 economies for scientific and technical articles relative to the size of its economy, and 137th of 139 for research co-authored by public institutions and companies. Lebanese researchers publish. They rarely publish with industry.
A chair whose job description includes partnerships with industry is aimed at that gap. A chair is one person, not a programme, and what it changes will depend on who is appointed and what they build. We will follow the appointment and add it to the record when it is made.
Sources
Written for Club Cedro. If something here is wrong, say so and it gets corrected with the correction left visible.
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