Message from the Dean

Research is featured in the opening of the mission statement of Carnegie Mellon University:

• To create and disseminate knowledge and art through research and artistic expression, teaching and learning; and to transfer intellectual products to society

We pursue research for many reasons. It keeps our faculty fresh; it exposes our students to real issues; it ties us into the needs of society. Mostly, we pursue research because it is a deeply rooted part of our culture. Carnegie Mellon is known for “problem solving” in our approach to everything we do: we teach problem solving, we practice it, and when we come across interesting problems, we use them to drive our research. These problems may be theoretical, with long-term implications to understanding our world, or practical, with immediate application. They may be local, working on specific concerns of Doha or Pittsburgh, or they may be global, dealing with issues of concern to the world. The problems originate in the public sector, or with private companies, or just out of the intellectual curiosity of professors and students.

Our goal, with the Qatar campus, is both to do research locally – I’m proud of the projects and publications we produce every year with a relatively small faculty – and also to make connections to the much larger resources of Pittsburgh and the other global Carnegie Mellon campuses. We connect interesting problems and issues with problem-solving faculty and students, wherever the people or problems are. The result is a global problem-solving culture. That’s what our founder, Andrew Carnegie, had in mind when he set up the University more than 100 years ago: people working together to eliminate boundaries and solve complex issues no matter where they arise.

We invite you to join us as a part of this problem-solving enterprise.

Charles E. Thorpe
Dean, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar