“Dr. Kocak has wide-ranging leadership experience in computing and engineering that will be invaluable at Quinnipiac,” Liebowitz said. “He has supported and developed student success efforts that increased retention, enrollment of domestic and international students, while expanding available student scholarships, diversity of the student population, and experiential education opportunities for students. He brings extensive experience in workforce development, industry partnerships, fundraising, faculty support and recruitment and a keen interest in interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Kocak, who is currently dean of the Dr. Robert A. Savoie College of Engineering and a professor in computer and electrical engineering at the University of New Orleans, will join Quinnipiac on June 30.

Under Kocak’s leadership over the last three years, the College of Engineering raised the two largest gifts in its history, leading to the naming of the College of Engineering and its School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, respectively.

While Kocak was dean, the college successfully gained university and state approval in 2020 for an undergraduate construction management degree program, the college’s first new Bachelor of Science degree offering since 1981. It also added a host of certificate programs, developed robust industry partnerships and developed interdisciplinary partnerships with the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and others.

Prior to the University of New Orleans, Kocak spent eight years as a professor, department chair and dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences at Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey. He holds a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Duke University and has previously worked at Duke, the University of Bristol in England and the University of Central Florida. Before entering higher education, he worked as a design engineer at Mitsubishi Electronic America’s Semiconductor Division in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

“I am honored to be appointed as dean of the School of Computing and Engineering at Quinnipiac University,” Kocak said. “I am very happy and excited to join the forward-looking, vibrant university, which has seen phenomenal growth in recent years. I look forward to working with President Judy Olian, Provost Liebowitz, the rest of the leadership team and my colleagues in the school in the next phase of growth in computing and engineering programs.”

Kocak’s broad research interests and expertise span the areas of machine learning, computer networks and high-performance computing. He has over 130 peer-reviewed publications, including 46 journal papers. He served as an associate editor for the Computer Journal published by Oxford University Press as well as the sole guest editor for a special issue of this journal. He served as the lead guest editor for a special issue of the ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems.

_{Photo courtesy of the University of New Orleans.}