DSU President Harry Lee Williams has appointed Dr. Noureddine Melikechi to be the University’s interim vice president of research, a newly created executive leadership post.

 

Dr. Melikechi, a 15-year faculty member at Delaware State University, was named last spring as the permanent dean of the institution’s College of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology after having served as the interim dean of that college since October 2008.

 

While Dr. Melikechi will continue as the dean of that college, as the interim vice president of research he will be responsible for the oversight of the University’s research portfolio, including state and federal initiatives.

 

“Dr. Melikechi is a proven leader and a premier researcher for our University. The breadth and depth of knowledge he brings will strengthen DSU’s position in research funding circles as well as forge important collaborations,” Dr. Williams said.

 

Dr. Melikechi joined DSU in 1995 as an assistant professor of physics. He was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and attained full professor status in 2002.

 

Since his arrival, he has been highly instrumental in the University’s development of optics curriculum and research. In 1998 Dr. Melikechi founded DSU’s Applied Optics Center, and later he was the principal investigator in research proposals through which DSU received two separate $5 million grants – in 2006 and 2009 – for optics research.

 

As the result of those two grants, Dr. Melikechi founded the Center for Education and Research in Optics Sciences and the Center for Applied Optics for Space Science. These two centers are focused on developing the next generation of optical scientists and on developing new technologies that can be used for the early detection of threats, including cancer, and for space application.

 

Dr. Melikechi is a native of Algeria where he graduated with a Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures in Physics from the University of Sciences and Technology of Algiers. He then went on to the University of Sussex in England to pursue graduate work in the area of atomic, molecular and optical physics and received a Master of Sciences in 1982 and a Doctorate of Philosophy (D.Phil.) in Physics in 1987.