Professor Jairo Lugo-Ocando, PhD (Sussex), is the Dean of the College of Communication. Previously, he was a Professor of Journalism Studies and director of Graduate Studies at Northwestern University in Qatar. Also, He was the Deputy Head of the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds in the UK.
He is the author of several books, journal articles and other academic publications. Over the years, he has received over US$ 1.1 million in external research grants funding from the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Qatar National Research Fund, the Leverhulme Trust and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities in Scotland, among other institutions.
Additionally, he was the recipient of the Theodore C. Sorensen Fellowship from the John F. Kennedy Library and was a visiting fellow at the National University of Singapore.
Before becoming an academic, he worked as a journalist, correspondent and news editor for several media outlets in Latin America and continues to be engaged with the mainstream news media as a regular commentator and columnist.