Dr. El-Rewini received his Ph.D. from Oregon State University before spending eleven years at the University of Nebraska as an assistant/associate/full professor and chair ad interim. He then served as a department chair at the School of Engineering of Southern Methodist University for seven years prior to becoming Dean of Engineering at the University of North Dakota (UND). He also served as Senior Vice Provost, in addition to his duties as a dean at UND. He currently serves as Provost and Senior Vice President at Marymount University, which is a private Catholic university that offers degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels. He is also a registered engineer in the State of Texas.

Dr. El-Rewini is a proven leader with over 30 years of experience in higher education. He has an outstanding track record of transformative leadership at both public and private research universities. Known for his commitment to honesty, inclusivity, and transparency, Dr. El-Rewini has always demonstrated the ability to foster and work effectively within a system of collaborative governance. He values diversity in all its forms and has been instrumental in enhancing diversity among all the teams that he has led.  He has extensive experience in strategic planning, alumni relations, community engagement, industry partnerships, and fundraising. 

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Dr. El-Rewini’s leadership has always emphasized trust, compassion, and openness with all stakeholders, especially students. To this end, Dr. El-Rewini has been an advocate of providing accessible and affordable education to underserved and underrepresented students. He routinely invites students to meet with about concerns and questions, and always seeks student opinion in the decision-making process. He was presented the Gordon Henry Award by UND’s Student Government for his continuous support of a student-centered culture. 

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Prior to becoming a full-time administrator, Dr. El-Rewini was a dedicated faculty member who taught many classes at all levels and conducted funded research. He has always been committed to innovative research that fosters discovery, meets societal needs, and stimulates technology transfer. His research projects were funded by grants from state/federal agencies and industry. He published numerous scholarly articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He supervised many M.S. and Ph.D. students and coauthored several books, including one of the earliest books written about parallel computing. Two of his books on computer architecture were translated to Chinese.