Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf 

Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf earned his master’s degree and PhD in civil engineering in 1980 and 1984, respectively. After completing his studies, Sharaf was a visiting professor at Purdue in 1984 before returning to Egypt. He then served as an assistant professor of highway and traffic engineering at Cairo University, followed by a brief stint at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia. In 1996, Sharaf became a professor of highway engineering at Cairo University and began advising the Egyptian government on transportation matters. In 2004, he was appointed Egypt’s minister of transport, a position he held until December 2005, when he returned to Cairo University. As minister of transport, Sharaf undertook unprecedented initiatives to modernize Egypt’s transportation infrastructure system, and he became a major force in the country’s transportation education, research, and public policy. Egypt’s governing military council tasked him to form a government during the 2011 revolution, and Sharaf served as Egypt’s 50th prime minister for most of 2011. Purdue honored him with a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award in 2006.