Mohamed Y. El-Naggar - USC

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Mohamed Y. El-Naggar

Interim Dean, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Mohamed Y. El-Naggar was appointed interim dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences on June 15, 2024. El-Naggar is a highly respected academic leader who was instrumental in developing and implementing USC’s Quantum Information Science Strategy, which has been transformative to the university’s Frontiers of Computing initiative.

He oversees strategic planning, faculty appointments and research advancement in USC Dornsife’s Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics as its divisional dean. As a Dean’s Professor of Physics and Astronomy, he and his research group investigate biological electron transfer and energy conversion, emphasizing the interface between the living and nonliving worlds. For the last six years, he has led a Department of Defense-funded multi-university research initiative on living electronics.

Elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2024, El-Naggar is the inaugural holder of the Robert D. Beyer Early Career Chair in Natural Sciences (2015-2021) and has authored over 75 peer-reviewed publications. He has been featured in news media outlets, including PBS NewsHour, Wired, Science Friday, Popular Science and The Scientist. He is also editor for the Journal of Bacteriology. His accolades include being honored by President Obama with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), being named one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant 10” (the magazine’s annual honor roll of “the 10 most promising young scientists whose innovations will change the world”) and receiving a Department of Defense Young Investigator Program Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. He joined USC Dornsife in 2006 as a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Earth Sciences before starting his faculty appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2009.

El-Naggar holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in engineering and applied science.