Dr. Honar Issa

Dr. Honar Issa has been an active AUK member even before its official inception. During 2016-2017, he served as AUK’s first Provost. Prior to that, he served on the Board of Trustees from 2013 to 2016, during which time he contributed significantly to the institution’s growth.

Occasionally, he functioned as AUK’s acting president to fill the void. Since 2017, he has served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees.

As one of the founding members of AUK’s Board of Trustees, he played an instrumental role in bringing the university into existence.

From 2012 to 2013, Dr. Issa served as founding Dean at Soran University in the Kurdistan Region, where he helped establish the Faculty of Engineering.

Dr. Issa taught structural engineering at the Universities of Duhok (2015–2018) and Salahaddin in the Kurdistan Region (2004–06, 2012–13). From 2007 to 2011, he also taught at Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom. Since 2020, he has been teaching Architectural Engineering students at AUK.

His primary research interests are biomechanics and structural optimization. He is an adjunct researcher at the University of Memphis in the United States. He has published articles, research papers, and opinion pieces in numerous national and international publications and websites. Dr. Issa has delivered keynote addresses at international conferences across the world. He is one of the founding members of the Kurdistan-America Student Friendship Organization (2003) and serves as its Board Chair.

Dr. Issa was appointed a program evaluator by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in 2019 to review the accreditation of engineering programs around the world. Middle States Commission of Higher Education (MSCHE) has designated him as a peer evaluator for the institution-level accreditation procedure. Moreover, he is a founding member of the Kurdistan Accrediting Association for Education (KAAE), which Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani established in 2022.

Salahaddin University awarded Dr. Issa a B.S. in Civil Engineering (2002) and an M.S. in Structural Engineering (2006). In 2006, as an outstanding student, he was awarded the Prime Minister’s Merit Scholarship for Ph.D. study. He received his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom (2010).