Keck Graduate Institute’s (KGI) Board of Trustees has selected Dr. Mohamed Abousalem, P.Eng., MBA, to succeed KGI’s current president, Sheldon M. Schuster, Ph.D.
Dr. Abousalem has over 30 years of technical, business, and administrative management experience leading world-class teams in higher education, industry, and the nonprofit sector.
As the Vice President for Research and Innovation at San José State University (SJSU), Dr. Abousalem provided executive leadership to the growth of the university’s research and innovation enterprise. Before joining SJSU, he served as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Industry Alliances and Technology Commercialization at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where, among other notable initiatives, he established a biotech wet-lab incubator and a technology startup.
Dr. Abousalem has held several executive roles for organizations in Silicon Valley and Canada, leading product and corporate development, general management, marketing communications, and human resources of several worldwide business operations.
“I am thrilled and privileged to have been chosen to lead KGI at this exciting and transformational time in its history,” Dr. Abousalem said. “I look forward to working with the KGI and Claremont Colleges communities and building on the legacies of Presidents Schuster and Riggs. I am excited to continue advancing science and engineering to develop tomorrow’s life science and healthcare leaders.”
Dr. Schuster also expressed his enthusiasm for the selection of Dr. Abousalem as his successor:
Dr. Abousalem is an exceptional leader with an impressive record of success in academia and industry,” Dr. Schuster said. “I am confident that he has the vision, experience, and commitment to take KGI to even greater heights in the coming years. I am excited to see all the amazing things the KGI community will accomplish under his leadership.
KGI’s chair of its board of trustees, Ross Grossman, similarly expressed confidence in Dr. Abousalem and the future of KGI under his leadership:
“We are thrilled to bring Mohamed to KGI as the successor to our founder, Hank Riggs, and Sheldon Schuster. For over 25 years, they built a unique, entrepreneurial university linking science, academic rigor, and strong industry relationships to make Keck Graduate Institute a premier provider of talent to the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and life science industries. Mohamed’s history of innovation in business and academia has prepared him to lead KGI into the future and build on the strong foundation he inherits.”
Dr. Abousalem is an appointee on the governing board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), is chair of the board of Litus Inc., a Calgary-based start-up nanotechnology company, and also a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium, the Knight Foundation Community Advisory Council, and the board of the Santa Cruz Startup Sandbox biotech incubator. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Geomatics Engineering from the University of Calgary, Canada, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.