Fadi Deek
Distinguished Professor, Informatics
3400 Guttenberg Information Technologies Center (GITC)
About Me
Administrative Appointments
Provost and Senior Executive Vice President (1/2013 – 06/2022)
Dean – College of Science and Liberal Arts (12/2003 – 6/2013)
Associate Dean – College of Computing (9/2001 – 12/2003)
Chairperson/Director – Information Technology Program (9/2000 – 6/2005)
Vice Chairperson – Computer and Information Science Department (9/1997 – 8/2001)
Associate Chairperson – Computer and Information Science Department—Undergraduate Studies (9/1997 – 8/2000)
Assistant Chairperson – Computer and Information Science Department (9/1995 – 8/1997)
Director – Computer and Information Science Undergraduate Programs (9/1989 – 8/1997)
Coordinator – Computer and Information Science Programs (9/1987 – 8/1989)

Academic Appointments
Distinguished Professor – Informatics (9/2014 – Present)
Joint appointments:
Mathematical Sciences (9/2003 – Present)

Member of Graduate Faculty – Rutgers University Newark (2012/01 – Present)
Then and Clark Endowed Chair (7/2016 – Present)
Professor – Informatics (9/2003 – 8/2014)
Associate Professor – Informatics (9/2001 – 8/2003)
Associate Professor – Computer and Information Science (9/1997 – 8/2001)
Lecturer – Computer and Information Science (9/1986 – 6/1989)
Teaching Assistant – Computer and Information Science (1/1985 – 6/1986)

Biography
Over his four decades of professional affiliation with New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Dr. Fadi P. Deek has progressed through faculty ranks, culminating with Distinguished Professor. He has similarly progressed through administrative ranks, culminating with Provost and Senior Executive Vice President.

Dr. Deek began his academic career as a student at NJIT in the early 1980s. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science, and PhD in Computer and Information Science; all from NJIT.

Dr. Deek’s faculty appointments are in two departments: Informatics (in the College of Computing) and Mathematical Sciences (in the College of Science and Liberal Arts). He also serves as NJIT's Then and Clark Endowed Chair and as a member of the Graduate Faculty at Rutgers University-Newark. Dr. Deek has taught students of differing abilities, from special needs to honors, and courses at all university levels in a variety of modalities, including face-to-face and online, from first-year to advanced graduate courses.

During this time, Dr. Deek has also had the opportunity to gain administrative experience in positions of increasing responsibility, from Coordinator and Director to Assistant, Associate, and Vice Chair as well as Chair/Director, eventually being named Associate Dean, Dean, and Provost and Senior Executive Vice President. In these positions, in addition to teaching and research, he has been actively involved in curricular development, program building and assessment, student recruitment, professional and regional accreditation, faculty and staff hiring and evaluation, promotion and tenure case review, resource development, budget management, policy development and implementation, collective bargaining, and fundraising.

Returning to the faculty in 2022, Dr. Deek has reactivated his research program with a keen interest in the intersection of philosophical, ethical, and technological aspects of artificial intelligence. He has always maintained an active funded-research program even while serving in senior administrative roles. His earlier research interests were primarily focused in the areas of software engineering and open source software development, all revolving around the development of new learning technologies that take into consideration the cognitive behaviors and needs of end-users. Because both learning and software engineering are highly collaborative activities, Dr. Deek also became interested in understanding how collaboration works, ranging from the dynamics of group decision support to the technologies required for computer-supported work. Most of this research has been supported by externally funded grants on which he has been the principal or co-principal investigator, most notably the Computation and Communication: Promoting Research Integration in Science and Mathematics (C2PRISM), $3 million from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Deek has mentored 15 PhD students six of whom are female, including African-American and Hispanic women who have gone on to successful careers in industry and academia. He has published over 200 articles in journals and conference proceedings, 14 book chapters, five edited collections, and three books: Open Source – Technology and Policy, (Cambridge University Press, 2007, co-authored with J. McHugh), Strategic Software Engineering – An Interdisciplinary Approach (Taylor & Francis Group - Auerbach Publications, 2005, co-authored with J. McHugh and O. Eljabiri), Computer-Supported Collaboration with Applications to Software Development (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003, co-authored with J. McHugh). Dr. Deek has also given over 50 invited/professional presentations and keynotes.

Dr. Deek has received numerous teaching, research, and leadership awards: The NJIT Student Senate Faculty of the Year Award, given to him in 1992 and 1993; the NJIT Honors Program Outstanding Teacher Award in 1992; the NJIT Excellence in Teaching Award in 1990 and 1999; the NJIT Master Teacher Designation in 2001 and the NJIT Robert W. Van Houten Award for Teaching Excellence in 2002. He has also been awarded the NJIT Overseers Public and Institute Service Award in 1997, the IBM Faculty Award in 2002, the NJIT Student Senate Administrator of the Year Award in 2007, and the NJIT Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award in 2009, and the NJIT National Society of Black Engineers Chapter’s Martin Luther King Jr. University Award in 2015. Dr. Deek has also been recognized in 2018 with an award from the World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU) in acknowledgment of his exceptional accomplishments and outstanding service to the community. In 2021, In recognition of his support and commitment to advancing technological development and innovation, Dr. Deek was inducted as Honorary Member of NJIT’s chapter of the National Academy of Inventors.

More recently, in 2022, Dr. Deek was given the Exemplar Model Award by NJIT’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers; the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Distinguished Alumnus Award by NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts; An Award in Recognition of Great Guidance and Outstanding Service by NJIT’s Martin Tuchman School of Management, and was recognized by an NJIT Board of Trustees resolution for his Leadership and Service as well as a resolution by the NJIT Alumni Association acknowledging Dr. Deek’s continued contributions to the growth and excellence of the university and its alumni. Also in 2022, the NJIT Faculty Senate as well as the full faculty body passed motions Recognizing the Outstanding Performance [of Dr. Deek] as Provost. Finally, in 2024, a resolution by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners was made in honor of Dr. Deek’s exceptional contributions to higher education… his remarkable achievements and his Lebanese heritage.
Education
Ph.D. ; New Jersey Institute of Technology ; Computer And Information Science ; 1997

M.S. ; New Jersey Institute of Technology ; Computer Science ; 1986

B.S. ; New Jersey Institute of Technology ; Computer Science ; 1985

Awards & Honors

2024 Resolution in honor of exceptional contributions to higher education… remarkable achievements and Lebanese heritage..., Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners

2022 Award in Recognition of Great Guidance and Outstanding Service, NJIT Martin Tuchman School of Management (MTSM)

2022 Distinguished Alumnus Award, NJIT College of Science and Liberal Arts

2022 Exemplar Model Award, NJIT Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers

2022 Lifetime Achievement Award, NJIT College of Science and Liberal Arts

2022 Motions Recognizing the Outstanding Performance … as Provost, NJIT Faculty Senate and the NJIT Full Faculty

2022 Resolution Acknowledging Continued Contributions to the Growth and Excellence of NJIT and its Alumni, NJIT Alumni Association

2022 Resolution in Recognition of Leadership and Service, NJIT Board of Trustees

2021 Honorary Member (2021), National Academy of Inventors, in recognition of support and commitment to advancing technological development and innovation, National Academy of Inventors

2018 Recognition of Exceptional Accomplishments and Outstanding Service to the Community, World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU)

2015 Martin Luther King Jr. University Award, National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) – NJIT Chapter

2009 Alumni Achievement Award, NJIT Alumni Association

2007 Administrator of the Year Award, NJIT Student Senate

2002 Faculty Award, IBM

2002 Robert W. Van Houten Award for Teaching Excellence, NJIT Alumni Association

2001 Master Teacher Designation, NJIT

1999 Excellence in Teaching Award, NJIT

1999 Nominated for Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching U.S. Professor of the Year Award, Carnegie Foundation

1997 Overseers Public and University Service Award, NJIT

1993 Faculty of the Year Award, NJIT Student Senate

1992 Faculty of the Year Award, NJIT Student Senate

1992 Outstanding Teacher Award, NJIT Honors Program

1990 Excellence in Teaching Award, NJIT

2025 Fall Courses
IS 489 - INFO UNDERGRAD THESIS RESEARCH

IS 792 - PRE-DOCTORAL RESEARCH

IS 725 - INDEPENDENT STUDY I

IS 488 - INDEPENDENT STUDY IN INFO

IS 726 - INDEPENDENT STUDY II

IS 700B - MASTER'S PROJECT

IS 790A - DOCT DISSERTATION & RES

IT 488 - INDEPENDENT STUDY

IS 350 - COMPUTERS, SOCIETY AND ETHICS

IS 491 - SENIOR PROJECT - IS

IS 776 - IS RESEARCH STUDY

IS 701B - MASTER'S THESIS

Past Courses
IS 350: COMPUTERS, SOCIETY AND ETHICS

Research Interests
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, AI Philosophy and Ethics, Blockchain Technology, Software Engineering, Open Source Software Development, Cognition/Learning/Collaborative/Group Decision Support Systems, Science and Technology Policy.
Book
Fadi P. Deek. "The Enduring Presence of Christianity in Lebanon." Purple Breeze Press, 2025. ISBN 979-8-9918895-5-1.

Fadi P. Deek, James A. McHugh. "Open Source – Technology and Policy." Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780521881036.

Fadi P. Deek, James A. McHugh, Osama M. Eljabiri. "Strategic Software Engineering – An Interdisciplinary Approach." Taylor and Francis Group-Auerbach Publications, 2005. ISBN 9780429132544.

Fadi P. Deek, James A. McHugh. "Computer-Supported Collaboration with Applications to Software Development." Springer US, 2003. ISBN 9781461350033.

Conference Paper
"RoI-MedCap: Region of Interest-Based Medical Image Captioning with Multi-Stream Connector"
Proc. IEEE International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics, October (4th Quarter/Autumn), 2025.

"MoE-MSC: Mixture of Experts with Multi-Stream Connector for Modality-Aware Medical Image Captioning"
Proc. the 16th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics, October (4th Quarter/Autumn), 2025.

"Frequency-Guided Contextual Image Captioning"
2025 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), September, 2025.

"Using clinical entity recognition for curating an interface terminology to aid fast skimming of EHRs"
IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM), December, 2024.

"AI in the Learning Environment: Examination of Pedagogical, Psychological, and Ethical Implications"
4th International Conference on AI Research (ICAIR), December, 2024.

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Journal Article
Gala Krsmanovic, Rebecca A. Deek, Fadi P Deek. 2025. "The Development and Maintenance of Thinking Processes and Learning Abilities in the Era of Artificial Intelligence." Computer , vol. 58 , no. 9 , pp. 80-90.

Mahshad Koohi Habibi Dehkordi, Yehoshua Perl, Fadi P Deek, Zhe He, Vipina K Keloth, Hao Liu, Gai Elhanan, Andrew J Einstein. 2025. "Improving Large Language Models’ Summarization Accuracy by Adding Highlights to Discharge Notes: Comparative Evaluation." JMIR Medical Informatics , vol. 13 , pp. e66476.

Al Shahriar Rubel, Frank Y. Shih, Fadi P Deek. 2025. "BFC-Cap: Background and Frequency-guided Contextual Image Captioning." International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence , vol. 39 , no. 08 .

Gala Krsmanović, Fadi P Deek. 2025. "Self-Reported Cognitive Effects of AI Applications on Learning." Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice , vol. 25 , no. 1 .

Wei Yao, N. Gorlewski, Fadi P Deek, Guiling Wang. 2024. "Considerations for Decision-makers and Developers toward Adoption of Decentralized Key Management Systems Technology in Emerging Applications." IEEE Computer , vol. 57 , no. 7 , pp. 27-38.

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Chapter
Fadi P Deek, . "Bob Lynch—A Four Decades of Distinction." In F.P. Deek, R. Friedman, and N. Elliot , eds., "Robert E. Lynch: A Life Celebrated," pp. 5-23. Purple Breeze Press, 2024.

Fadi P Deek. "Resolution." In F.P. Deek, R. Friedman, and N. Elliot , eds., "Robert E. Lynch: A Life Celebrated," pp. 95-98. Purple Breeze Press, 2024.

Fadi P Deek, Regina Collins. "On the Use of a Novel Converged Learning Model as an Agile Method for Teaching and Learning Before, During, and After the Pandemic." "An Anthology of Case Histories," pp. 35-47. 8th e-Learning Excellence Awards/ACPIL, 2022.

Luyin Zhao, Fadi P Deek, James McHugh. "Strategies for Improving Open Source Software Usability: An Exploratory Learning Framework and a Web-based Inspection Tool, in Multi-Disciplinary Advancement in Open Source Software and Processes." In Stephan Koch, eds., "Multi-Disciplinary Advancement in Open Source Software and Processes," pp. 218-232. IGI Global, 2011.

Robert S. Friedman, Fadi P Deek, Norbert Elliot. "Validation of E-learning Courses in Computer Science and Humanities: A Matter of Context." In Christine Spratt and Paul Lajbcygier, eds., pp. 157-176. IGI Global, 2009.

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Edited Collection
"Robert E. Lynch: A Life Celebrated"
Purple Breeze Press, 2024.

"Computer Science Handbook, Second Edition (Edited book), Editorial Advisor"
CRC Press, 2004.

"Final Report of the ACM K-12 Task Force Curriculum Committee – A Model Curriculum for K-12 Computer Science (Edited book)"
ACM Press, 2004.

"Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Information Technology: Research and Education"
IEEE Communications Society, 2003.

"Proceedings of the 1995, 1996 and 1997 Conferences on Computer Science Education in the Secondary Schools: Curriculum Guidelines, Content and Professional Development"
NJIT, 1997.