Brief: Introduction to the Asian University for Women
Biography: Kamal Ahmad, Founder and Acting Vice-Chancellor
Biography: Dr. Mary Sansalone, Provost and Chief Academic Officer
Biography: Dr. Ashok Keshari, Dean of Math, Science, and Engineering
Biography: Jack Meyer, Chairman, AUW Support Foundation
Click here to download a short description of AUW (PDF).
Kamal Ahmad is the founder of the Asian University for Women and currently serves as the Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University.
He serves as the Acting Vice Chancellor of the University and President & CEO of the Asian University for Women Support Foundation, which is charged with the planning and development of the University. Mr. Ahmad is a recipient of the 1984 United Nations Gold Peace Medal and Citation Scroll given by the Paul G. Hoffman Awards Fund in honor of the first Administrator of UNDP. He was also awarded a Time magazine College Achievement Award in 1986 which cited him as “one of twenty most outstanding undergraduates” in America. The World Economic Forum elected him as a “Global Leader for Tomorrow”. Mr. Ahmad grew up in Bangladesh and was educated in the United States at Harvard College and at the University of Michigan Law School. He is admitted to practice law in the State of New York.
Read Kamal Ahmad's World Bank speech
Read Kamal Ahmad's speech at Inamori Academy
Dr. Mary J. Sansalone is the Provost & Chief Academic Officer of AUW. Dr. Sansalone was one of the first female professors to earn both tenure and the rank as professor as a member of the engineering faculty at Cornell University where she later served as Vice Provost of academic programs. Following her career at Cornell University (1987-2006), she served as Dean of Engineering & Applied Sciences at Washington University. She studied literature and engineering at the University of Cincinnati from which she graduatedsumma cum laude. She went on to pursue graduate study at Cornell where she earned a Masters and a PhD in Structural Engineering. Prior to turning to academic administration at Cornell, she spent a year at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, obtaining a Masters in Public Administration. Recognized as both a scholar and an outstanding teacher, in 1992 Dr. Sansalone was named “U.S. National Professor of the Year” by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation.
Dr. Ashok Keshari is AUW's Dean of Math, Science, and Engineering. Dr. Keshari obtained his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the India Institute of Technology (IIT), in Kanpur, India. He did his postdoctoral studies at Korean National University in South Korea. He specializes in Water Resources & Environmental Engineering, Geoscience and Geoinformatics, and his areas of interest include hydrological and environmental modeling, groundwater flow and pollution modeling, groundwater recharge and sustainable development, remote sensing and GIS, optimization and FEM, waste management and sewerage system, and policy analysis and risk assessment. Prior to joining AUW, Dr. Keshari served as a professor at IIT Delhi for 17 years.
Jack R. Meyer, Chair of the Asian University for Women Support Foundation, is Senior Managing Partner at Convexity Capital Management L.P. located in Boston. He co-founded the firm with managing partners, Dave Mittelman and Maurice Samuels in July 2005. Before Convexity, Mr. Meyer was President and CEO of Harvard Management Company, which manages the University's endowment assets, pension funds, charitable trusts and pooled income funds totaling in excess of $31 billion by the end of his term.
Prior to HMC, Mr. Meyer was Treasurer and Chief Investment Officer of the Rockefeller Foundation where he managed the Foundation's endowment, valued at $2 billion. Before the Foundation, he was Deputy Controller of New York City, where he managed $20 billion in total assets, including the City's pension funds, sinking funds, and treasury funds. He also held various investment management positions with Lionel D. Edie, a New York City investment firm, and at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Mr. Meyer currently serves on the AUWSF Board of Directors as well as the Investment Committee of The Boston Foundation. Previously, he served as a Director of the Investment Responsibility Research Council, and on the investment committees of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Massachusetts State Pension Fund, and the Atlantic Foundation.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree from Denison University. In 2004 Denison awarded him an honorary doctorate degree. He received his Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
