Dr. Kamal Khan is the Director of the Office for Development and Academic Success in the Sciences (ODASIS)—an academic support unit within the Division of Life Sciences at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey on the New Brunswick/Piscataway campus—as well as an Associate Professor for the Department of Africana Studies and the Division of Life Sciences at Rutgers University. For over 30 years, Dr. Khan has dedicated his professional career to undergraduate instruction and academic development in efforts to increase and retain the number of underrepresented and economically disadvantaged students at Rutgers who pursue majors and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Since Dr. Khan’s arrival at Rutgers, he has worked tirelessly to expand the university’s graduate pool of professionals and strengthen the country’s workforce by increasing the number of physicians, nurses, dentists, engineers, and mathematicians serving and diversifying the field.
Dr. Kamal Khan brings to his position a professional degree in medicine. His excellence as an administrator is based in his dedication to student advancement in the sciences and his commitment to demonstrate the effectiveness of support programs for underrepresented and educationally disadvantaged students. Dr. Khan believes that, “in order to motivate a student you need to build a rapport with the student that consists of trust, relationship and confidence.” A Rutgers alumnus himself, he is known for his “tough love” for the students, which is exactly the kind of attitude that encourages students to go on to professional health education.