KALAI MATHEE, MSc, PhD.

Founding Chair & Professor

Department of Molecular Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

College of Medicine, Florida International University, Miami, USA

www.fiu.edu/~matheek

COM SERVICE

In Fall 2006, I was asked by Provost Berkman to serve on the search committee for the Founding Dean for the College of Medicine (COM). It was a great experience and I felt that I was truly helping to lay the cornerstone of this new enterprise. This is a high honor to be part of building the foundation. I joined COM in Fall 2007. I shared the office next door to Dean Simpson and worked on a multitude of projects, many of which had direct or indirect impact on the provisional accreditation of FIU COM. Some of my major contributions were:

(i) Handbook: Contributed to the final version of COM Faculty Handbook.

(ii) Recruitment: Served on the search committee and was personally involved in hosting every individual COM interviewed (~35 interviewees with ~14 seminars). This effort resulted in hiring

a. Research faculty members: Barry Rosen (Assoc Dean for Research), Rita Mukhopadhyay (Assoc Prof), Alexander Agoulnik (Prof), Irina Agoulnik (Assoc Prof), and Helen Tempest (Asst Prof).

b. Recruitment of teaching faculty members: Participated in the recruitment of CH Rao, Jenny Fortun, Nafis Rahman, Iveris Martinez, Juan Acuna, Dieter Lorkhe, and Ken Rosenthal

c. Recruitment of Chairs: David Brown, Robert Poppiti, Manuel Panelvar, Jeffery Horstmeyer, and Georg Petroianu,

d. Recruitment of Staff: David Boilard, Luda Dolinsky, Bohyun Kim, Maria Melssen and Esther Lopez

(iii) Curriculum: Development of Period I & II curriculum for the inaugural class.

a. Developed the course content for the “Microbes, Infection and Immunology” class (BMS6300) designed for the first year medical students. In order to provide the best, I traveled to Case Western Reserve University to better understand the case-based curriculum. I have personally helped recruit the most impressive group of individuals to teach the class (http://medicine.fiu.edu/molecular_microbiology.php) and two of them (Rosenthal and Pfaller) authored the Medical Microbiology textbook that has been adopted for this class.

b. Involved in the development of the PhD proposal for the joint degree between the Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry-Biochemistry.

c. Currently working on the Period II curriculum.

(iv) Seminars:

a. Currently host the COM Distinguished Seminar Series that started January 2008. I have hosted ten speakers to date.

b. Have initiated the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Seminar Series. The first speaker was hosted on October 9^th, 2009. I hope to raise funds to name the series.

c. Organized a one-day symposium (Spring 2009) to bring together scientists interested in bionanosensing from Biological Sciences, Chemistry-Biochemistry, Computer Science, Material Science, Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and COM.

(v) COM Website: Actively participated in the redesigning of the COM website and provided the necessary framework to all the other chairs.

(vi) Admission Committee:

a. Involved in selecting the inaugural class of the medical students. This was perhaps the most time-consuming process.

b. Serving a second term on this committee.