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Education and Research in Jordan, Challenges & Outlook

Education and Research in Jordan, Challenges & Outlook. Bothina Hamad , Ph.D. Physics Department University of Jordan. MCC, August, 3 rd, , 2006. Jordan: A Quick Introduction. Population: About 5.25 Millions Famous sites : Petra : 3 hours south Amman

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Education and Research in Jordan, Challenges & Outlook

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  1. Education and Research in Jordan,Challenges & Outlook Bothina Hamad , Ph.D. Physics Department University of Jordan MCC, August, 3rd, , 2006

  2. Jordan: A Quick Introduction • Population: About 5.25 Millions • Famous sites: Petra: 3 hours south Amman Wadi Rum : 4 hours south Amman Aqaba : 4 hours south Amman Jerash : 1 hour north Amman • Climate: Special climate, cool for most summer days and rainy in the winter time with many spectacular sunny days. • Language: Arabic is the official language. English is the second language and is spoken throughout the country.

  3. Education In Jordan • Education is one of the most important things that the Jordanian government and people care about. • Jordanian people believe strongly in Education and they think that is the key for the future. • Most of the Jordanians would do anything to send their kids to school and then off to the universities. • The Education system in Jordan is one of the best systems in the Middle East region. It concentrates a lot on the person and it tries to take care of the children to put them on the right start.

  4. Higher Education • Eight public universities with 80,000 students. • Twelve private universities with 30,000 students. • Twenty one community colleges with 29,000 students. • 25% of total recurrent costs are recovered in the public sector. • Spending on education relative to GNP is greatest in the Arab world. • 1/3 of educational expenditure is given to higher education.

  5. Jordan University • Yarmouk University • Science & technology • University • Al Al-Bayt University • Heshemea University • Al Balqa University • Mu’uta University • Ma’an University

  6. The University of Jordan Competence & Excellence

  7. UJ in Brief : • Established in1962, UJ is the leading and the oldest institution of higher education in Jordan. It is often referred to as the “mother” university. • UJ started with the Faculty of Arts with167students enrolled &5faculty members. • Today, it has18academic faculties,two deanships(research and student affairs),11centers, and many other facilities, including an excellent library. The number of faculty members stands at about1200at present. • It has a student population, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, of about38,000. Undergraduate students:34,000 &Graduate students:4,000. • UJ began with the year system. In 1972-73it switched to the credit-hour system. It was the first in the Arab-World to do so. The faculties of Medicine, and Dentistry are the only exceptions.

  8. Location It is located in Amman (the white city), the capital of Jordan, a city of about 2 million people. Like Rome, originally established on 7 hills. Amman

  9. One-Campus University UJ prides itself on the beauty of its one-campus university. Nestled on a spacious area of 120 Ha (1,200 dunums) , the landscape is composed of flat ground and mild slopes covered with evergreen pines, elms and olive trees.

  10. Status • UJ is a “public” university: it is semi-independent, neither totally state-run or supported, nor privately endowed or invested. • UJ is, at once, national, regional, and international.

  11. Undergraduate Programs • Regular Program:the Unified Coordination Admission Bureau: coordinates general admission for all public universities in the Kingdom according to the regulations of the Higher Education Council. 2. Parallel Program:for students with non-Jordanian nationalities/certificates, or for the students who were not accepted through the Regular Program.

  12. Graduate Programs • Masters Program: There are two tracks for the Master's degree (36 credit hours): • Non-thesis track, in which students must pass a comprehensive exam after successfully finishing the courses required by the program's Study Plan. • Master's thesis track: requires the student, in addition to successfully finishing the courses required by the Study Plan, to conduct research, and subsequently submit and defend a Master's thesis. • The maximum period is 6 semesters in both tracks. • TOEFL is required.

  13. Graduate Programs • Ph.D. Program: • Maximum of 10 semesters. • 54 credit hours (36 hours courses, 18 hours thesis) • Qualifying Exam • TOEFL Required

  14. Faculty members • The majority of the faculty members are USA and • Europe graduates. Some are UJ graduates . • They are chosen in standards of high merits.

  15. Teaching duties

  16. Distribution of Faculty Members at UJ 58% 42 % Humanities & Social Sciences Scientific Faculties

  17. A) Overall Gender Distribution of Faculty Members at UJ 18% 82% Male Female

  18. Students Body • UJ is proud of choosing the top students in Jordan with high academic achievement and excellence. • Strong international presence: more than 77 countries represented on campus, and over 12% are international students. • Diverse students: varieties from the country, the region, and the globe. Gender, ethnic, race diversity.

  19. A) Overall Gender Distribution of Students at UJ 40% 60% Male Female

  20. B) Gender Distribution of Students Scientific Faculties Humanities and Social Sciences 52% 48% 67% 33% Male Female

  21. Gender Distribution of Graduate Students at UJ 44% 56% Male Female

  22. Faculty of Science • Established in 1965 by departments of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biological Sciences with112 studentsand5 facultymembers. • present student enrollment reached more than2000 undergraduateas well as about321 graduate students, and121 facultymembers. • In1973, the Department of Geology was added . • Department of Computer Science in1982that becomes King Abdullah II School for Information Technology in2000. • In2002, the Mathematics department added an Actuarial science program. • In2004, the Biology department added a Medical analysis program.

  23. Physics Department • The Department has 26 Faculty members engaged in teaching of about 350 students. • Research in the Physics Department: Experimental Physics: •  Nanoscience and nanotechnology •  Material Science •  Solid State •  Research in Medical Imaging •  LaserSpectroscopy Theoretical Physics: •  Theory of Condensed Matter Physics: (Bose-Einsten condensation, Quantum field theory). •  Computational Physics : (Magnetism, catalysis)

  24. Members of the Physics Department

  25. Resources of Funds • Deanship of scientific research. • The higher council of science & technology. • Mango center. HOWEVER These resources are very SMALL as compared to the real need! • Most of the Jordanian scientists are depending on external funds & external donations.

  26. Research Challenges at UJ • Acute shortage of funds ( minor contribution from UJ). • Non-relevance of programs ( No funds from industry to create motivated research projects ). • No grants resources to create Postdoc opportunities. • No resources for Ph.D. scholarships to have full time Ph.D. students. • No budget to invite scientists. • Negligible resources for organizing conferences at UJ. • A very small support for scientist’s contributions in international conferences.

  27. My Group Members • Bothina Hamad (Assistant Prof.) • Hanan Sa’adi (M.Sc. Student) • Bilal Al-Qasem (Ph.D. Student) • Ihsan Ereekat (Ph.D. Student) Joining Soon: • Ashraf Fadous (M.Sc. Student) • Ziad Quda (M.Sc. Student) Condition: If I can find some external resources for computational power !!!!!

  28. Resources • 4 P4 computers. • 5 (64 AMD dual opterons) machines. A Donation from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Problems: • Difficulties in setting up the linux cluster. • No cooling system. • No UPS .

  29. (1) Magnetism Surface Magnetism Interlayer Exchange Coupling Semi-empirical TB Method First Principle calculations First Principle calculations Fields of Interests

  30. Fields of Interests (2) Structures and dynamics of transition metal surfaces Surface Relaxation Phonons DFT+ Interpolations DFT calculations

  31. (3) Catalysis Oxide formation and oxidation catalysis at transition metal surfaces (CO oxidation on transition-metal surfaces). We have just started

  32. (1) MAGNETISM(A) Magnetic structure of transition-metal surfaces and interfaces Fe, Co & Ni are the only bulk ferromagnetic materials in nature. Transition metals are goodcandidates for fabricating artificial magnetic structures of materials that are paramagnetic in their bulk. i.e. (surfaces, overlayers & ultrathin films)

  33. Magnetic structure of artificial structures is attributed to the following : • The decrease in the coordination number 2. The increase of the interatomic spacing . 3. The induction of magnetized neighboring atoms . Density of states near Fermi level increases & satisfying Stoner criterion(J×n(Ef)>1) that gives rise to the appearance of magnetism.

  34. Semi-empirical Calculation

  35. Results • Iron-Vanadium Systems • Bulk vanadium is paramagnetic. • V interfaces exhibit induced magnetism when they are brought in contact with magnetic materials. • Low dimensional V monolayers exhibit appreciable local magnetic moments.

  36. (ii)

  37. V overlayer in V/Fe(001) Bulk V Ef Stoner Criterion J× n(Ef )> 1 Jv=0.5 eV Local Density of States (States/atom. eV) Energy (eV)

  38. The magnetic moment (in Bohr Magnetons) for surface V atoms and atoms of Mo sublayer in V/Mo(103) system.

  39. The average magnetization ( in Bohr magnetons) for the V/Mo(10 k) stepped structures

  40. Magnetic Non-Magnetic Spacer Magnetic FM AF Still Magnetism (B) Interlayer Exchange Coupling The interlayer exchange coupling (IEC) between magnetic layers separated by a non-magnetic spacer has attracted considerable interest due to their interesting properties such as theoscillationbetween ferromagnetic(FM)and antiferomagnetic(AF)coupling, and giantmagnetoresistance (GMR).

  41. What `s GMR? GMR is the change in electrical resistance in response to an applied magnetic field .It was discovered that the application of a magnetic field to Fe/Cr multilayer resulted in a significant reduction of the electrical resistance of the multilayer.

  42. GMR Applications

  43. A study of IEC of CoIrn Superlattices In order to use such superlattices in GMR applications and spin injection, the magnetic-nonmagnetic materials should have band structure matching. Cobalt-iridium (Co-Ir) system is an interesting system for studying the IEC due to the band matching between the two elements. Investigations are done using FP-LAPW (WIEN2k).

  44. Ir Co-spin up

  45. The optimization procedure for the CoIrn supercells CoIr1 CoIr2

  46. & Interlayer Exchange coupling (IEC) d is the thickness of the spacer layer total energies of FM & AF arrangements

  47. IEC using LSDA IEC Using LSDA

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