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Sheikh Hamad Professorship

Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professorship

The Qatar Foundation provided funding for the Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professorship at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications in 2010. 

It is named in honor of the former leader of Qatar, His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Father Emir.

Northwestern and the Qatar Foundation have been partners since 2008, when Northwestern joined five other leading American universities that had established branch campuses at Education City, a rapidly developing community of educational and research institutions on the outskirts of Doha, Qatar. Northwestern University in Qatar offers undergraduate degrees in communication and journalism. NU-Q and the Medill programs based there have grown significantly since the program’s inception. Students in the Medill program at NU-Q take the same sequence of classes and complete journalism residencies as students on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. The program is slated to move into a new 350,000 square-foot building featuring cutting-edge equipment for media production as well as formal and informal spaces for faculty-student and student-student collaboration.

The Qatar Foundation was established in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad with the overarching goal of preparing the people of Qatar and the region for the challenges of the 21st century. Chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, the foundation’s Education City is widely recognized as a pioneer in the globalization of higher education.

The Qatar Foundation has also endowed Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professorships in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and School of Communication.

Since its inception, Professor Frank Mulhern is one of the first two faculty members to hold the chair position. Professor Emeritus Jack Doppelt held the second chair position from 2014 – 2021. Professor Vijay Viswanathan has held the second chair position since 2021.