Carnegie Mellon celebrates 20 years in QF's Education City

More than 300 alumni returned to Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q), a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the campus in Education City on Monday.

QF Vice Chairperson and CEO HE Sheikha Hind bint Hamad al-Thani, the US ambassador Timmy Davis and other dignitaries were present at the event in the CMU-Q building.

Since opening its doors in 2004, CMU-Q has seen 1,300 graduates, most of whom are now working and living in Qatar. At the ceremony, Michael Trick, dean of CMU-Q since 2017, spoke about the impact of the campus over the past 20 years.

In a message shared prior to the event, HE Sheikha Hind said: “The vision of Qatar Foundation is to unlock human potential, and we share this dedication to education and inspiration with our Carnegie Mellon partners. The graduates of CMU-Q receive diplomas in a select set of disciplines, and with this knowledge, they have travelled many paths and are transforming the world in truly unique ways. We value this partnership, and look forward to many more years of collaboration and educational excellence.”

The occasion also featured remarks from Carnegie Mellon University president Farnam Jahanian and QF's Higher Education and Education adviser Francisco Marmolejo.

CMU-Q began classes in August 2004, with 41 students in two undergraduate programmes: business administration and computer science. In 2007, information systems was added, followed by biological sciences in 2011.

The evening featured several graduates who shared their experiences as CMU-Q alumni in the Qatar workplace. The alumni panel included Mohammed al-Hardan (Business Administration, 2009), head of Technology, Media and Telecom Investment at Qatar Investment Authority; Abdulla al-Khenji (Information Systems, 2015), founder of Meddy and Flare Business; Noora al-Muftah (Computational Biology, 2016), assistant professor at Qatar University; Nofe al-Suwaidi (Business Administration, 2011), acting director for International Co-operation and Development, Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Fahim Dalvi (Computer Science, 2014) senior software engineer, Arabic Language Technologies, Qatar Computing Research Institute; and Farjana Salahuddin (Information Systems, 2017), chief operating officer of STA and an interactive and new media artist.

One of the latest graduates, Abdulrahman Darwish Fakhroo (Business Administration, 2024), shared his perspective on the impact the newest graduates — and those who will graduate in the coming years — will have on Qatar and the world.

Currently, CMU-Q is home to more than 450 students from 61 countries. The incoming class, who will graduate in 2028, includes the largest number of Qatari citizens in campus history.