| Mustafa A.G. Abushagur مصطفى ابوشاقور غيت ابوشاقور |
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|---|---|
| Deputy Prime Minister of Libya |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office November 22, 2011 |
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| President | Mustafa Abdul Jalil |
| Prime Minister | Abdurrahim El-Keib |
| Preceded by | Ali Tarhouni |
| Personal details | |
| Born | February 15, 1951 Tripoli, Libya |
| Political party | Independent |
| Alma mater | University of Tripoli (BSc) California Institute of Technology (MSc, PhD) |
| Profession | University President[1] |
Dr. Mustafa A.G. Abushagur (in Arabic - مصطفى ابوشاقور غيت ابوشاقور ; born February 15, 1951) is the founding president of RIT Dubai, a professor of electrical engineering and an entrepreneur. He was named the interim Deputy Prime Minister of Libya on November 22, 2011.[2]
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Abushagur was born in the Souq Al-Jumuah district of Tripoli, Libya on February 15, 1951. When he was a few years old, his family moved to the western mountain city of Gharyan, where they resided for sometime before returning to Souq Al-Jumuah in Tripoli.
He began his education in the city of Gharyan غريان, Libya. When he was in second grade, he moved to Souq Al-Jumuah schools where he continued his studies until he completed high school. He then studied at the University of Tripoli in Tripoli, Libya, where he earned a B.Sc. in electrical engineering. In 1975, Abushagur moved to Pasadena, CA to continue his education at the California Institute of Technology, (Caltech). During his time at Caltech, he earned a M.Sc. in electrical engineering in 1977 and earned his Ph.D. in 1984.
Abushagur began his academic career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester in 1984. Then he joined the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in 1985 as an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and became full Professor in 1995. While working in the ECE department, he proposed a plan to start an optical engineering undergraduate program. He went on to develop the curriculum and was the Chairman of the Optical Engineering Committee for the remainder of his time at the university. This program became the first to receive the ABET accreditation in optical engineering in the USA. During his time at UAH, Abushagur received mutliple research awards and grants from several federal agencies, such as NASA, NSF, DOD and the FAA. While on sabbatical leave from UAH, Abushagur was involved in two start-up companies. The first start-up was Photronix (M) Sdn. Bhd.[3] in Malaysia, an optical fiber component company, which he founded in 1998 with private equity. From 1998 to 2002, Abushagur was the president and CTO before returning to his position at UAH. His second start-up was LiquidLight, which was an optical networking equipment developer, which was founded through venture capital. He was the co-founder, CTO and vice president of LiquidLight from 2000-2001.[1][4]
In 2002, Abushagur was the founding director of the Ph.D. Program in Microsystems Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). In early 2007, he led the effort to establish a satellite campus in the Middle East and drove the negotiations between RIT and the UAE government's Dubai Silicon Oasis in Dubai, UAE. The satellite campus was opened in fall 2008 and Abushagur became the founding president of RIT Dubai.[5][6]
Abushagur's key research areas are nanophotonics, plasmonics, photonic microsystems, adaptive signal processing, optical MEMS, optical computing, optical communications, optical interconnects and fiber sensors. He holds three patents,[7][8][9] has published ninety-eight research papers,[10] published a book on Fourier optics[11] and has been invited to write five book chapters.[12][13][14][15][16] As a result of his significant contributions to the field of optics, the field of photonics and for pioneering educational programs, Abushagur has been named a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the International Society of Optics and Photonics (SPIE).[17][18] He has also won numerous awards such as the Space Act Award from the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board in 2004,[19] served as an editor for several professional journals and cumulatively received approximately thirteen million dollars in research grants and funding.[1]
In the 1970s, Abushagur became a staunch opponent of the Gaddafi regime. While at Caltech, Abushagur was actively working with other regime opposition members in the United States. Abushagur had met many Gaddafi dissidents while at the University of Tripoli, such as Abdurrahim El-Keib in 1971.[20] El-Keib later went on to become the second interim Prime Minister of Libya during the 2011 Libyan Civil War. His contact with El-Keib, as well as many other dissidents, continued after his move to California, where many of them attended universities. This common goal of overthrowing the Gaddafi regime solidified their resolve as they all actively worked to end Gaddafi's rule of Libya for the next three decades. In 1980, Abushagur made his final visit to Libya to say farewell to his family before his Gaddafi opposition group started to openly oppose the regime. Abushagur became involved in the creation and leadership of several opposition groups, including the National Front for the Salvation of Libya. As a result of these political activities, he was placed on Gaddafi’s wanted list in early 1981. Abushagur and his fellow dissidents lived in exile outside of Libya for the next thirty-two years.[21] In May 1984, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya attempted to overthrow the Libyan regime. The failed attempt resulted in the execution of many the Libyan dissidents who had studied in the United States, while many others were arrested.[22] Gaddafi televised their public executions and had many of the dissidents interrogated on television. During the televised interrogations, Abushagur’s name was mentioned several times. These confessions caused Abushagur’s family in Libya to face significant hardships for many years to follow.
At the beginning of the 2011 Libyan Civil War, the National Transitional Council (NTC) began appointing representatives from the districts and cities of western Libya in an effort to create a unified front for the entire country against Gaddafi. Due to the military crackdown in the west by Gaddafi, many of the representatives that were chosen by the NTC lived abroad in order to safeguard the identities of anti-Gaddafi figures living in western Libya. Abushagur joined the delegation representing the west, central and south of Libya to Benghazi to show their support for the NTC. For the formal announcement of the NTC representatives in May 2011, Abushagur flew to Benghazi and set foot on Libyan soil for the first time in nearly thirty-two years. For the remainder of the revolution, Abushagur continued to work behind the scenes as advisor with the NTC and was a regular guest on Al-Aan TV and Al-Arabiyah TV as a Libyan affairs analyst.[23][24][25]
On November 22, 2011, Abushagur was named the Deputy Prime Minster of Libya. Two days after being named Deputy Prime Minister, he took his oath of allegiance, which stated: "I swear by Almighty God to perform my duties honestly and faithfully, to stay faithful to the objectives of the Seventeeth of February Revolution, to respect the constitutional declaration and bylaws of the Council, to carefully honor the interests of the Libyan people and to safeguard the independence of Libya, its security and its territorial integrity." [26]
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| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ali Tarhouni |
Deputy Prime Minister of Libya 2011–present |
Incumbent |