President, Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane

Amine Bensaid is a university professor of computer science; he has been president of Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) since November 2019. He served as president of Mundiapolis University in Casablanca between 2011 and 2019. In 2022, he was appointed as a member of Morocco’s Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research. He’s currently serving on the Boards of the American Council for Independent Colleges, of the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange (the Fulbright Commission in Morocco, where he’s currently Chairman of the Board), and of Morocco’s Agency for Evaluation and Quality Assurance. He’s also a member of Morocco’s National Commission for Higher Education. Amine holds a B.S. in Information Systems, an M.S. in Computer Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of South Florida (USF). Amine has held research assignments at the Technical University of Delft and at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a faculty member at AUI from 1994 to 2009, where he served as Program Coordinator, Dean of Engineering, then Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research. He was a UNDP expert on quality assurance (2002-2007). As a computer scientist, his research and publications have been in the Artificial Intelligence areas of fuzzy pattern recognition and data mining. He served as Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics from 1999 to 2010. He was a member of the founding team of the Moroccan foundation for Scientific Innovation & Research, then served as an advisor to its chairman and CEO. His current interest focus is on the role of higher education for employability and thriving of the new generation in the fast-changing 21st century world. Amine is a Fulbright Scholar and a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Golden Key, Tau Beta Pi American honor societies.