GAZA, (PIC)
Dr. Sufyan Tayeh is a Palestinian academic who was the President of the Islamic University of Gaza, and was one of the pioneer researchers in theoretical physics and applied mathematics. He was born in 1971 and killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza in 2023.
Birth and upbringing
Sufyan Abdul Rahman Tayeh was born in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza on August 20, 1971. He grew up in the camp, studied and worked in Gaza City.
Education and career
Dr. Tayeh received his formal education in the schools of Jabalia camp, where he was born, particularly in the schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
After school, he joined the Islamic University of Gaza from which he graduated and obtained his bachelor’s degree in physics in 1994. After that, he worked at the same university as a teaching assistant. Later on, he got his master’s degree and then his PhD’s degree and started working as assistant professor at the Islamic University.
In 2004, he began working on his doctoral thesis which he finished in 2007 to return to resume his teaching position at the Islamic University.
In 2005, he was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at the Rafah border crossing while he was heading to Egypt to complete the procedures for submitting his PhD dissertation at Ain Shams University.
In 2018, he was appointed as an assistant professor at the Islamic University, about which he says, “I realized from the first moment that the university’s mission was not just teaching and graduating generations, but rather scientific research and community service which come prior to teaching as the university’s basic mission is scientific research.”
Dr. Tayeh obtained professorship in the field of theoretical physics and applied mathematics and upon his completion of his doctorate degree in 2007, he immediately joined a research team at the Islamic University, to which he attributed the first credit in his scientific career.
Over the period from 2008 to 2011, he assumed the position of Head of Physics Department at the Islamic University and he was appointed President of the University in August 2023.
Academic activity
One of Dr. Tayeh’s research works was a proposal for scientific research in the field of optical sensors submitted to the University of Montreal, Canada.
With the participation of Professor Ahmed Hamdan, Dr. Tayeh presented a research study entitled “Sensitivity enhancement in optical waveguide sensors”.
The research paper aimed to explore multi-layer waveguide structures (more than 3 layers) for the purpose of optical biosensing, and to study the effect of anisotropic materials on the sensitivity of plate waveguide structures, in addition to studying more photonic crystals (two- and three-layer) with different compositions as well as the number of biosensing various layers.
Martyrdom
On Saturday, December 2, 2023, after the end of the temporary humanitarian truce between Hamas and Israel, Dr. Sufyan Tayeh and his family members were martyred as a result of an Israeli merciless airstrike that targeted Al-Falouja area in Jabalia, north of Gaza, leaving behind a bloody massacre.
The Ministries of Higher Education and Scientific Research, and the Palestinian Ministry of Culture mourned martyr Sufyan Tayeh and applauded his scientific merits, his great contributions in the field of scientific research, and his long career which was ended by the Israeli killing of the distinguished Physics Scientist Dr. Sufyan Tayeh at age 52.
Awards and honors
Dr. Tayeh was winner of the Palestine Islamic Bank Award for Scientific Research for years 2019 and 2020.
In March 2023, he was appointed holder of the UNESCO Chair for Physical, Astrophysical and Space Sciences in Palestine.
He was recipient of the Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Young Arab Scientists; and the winner of the Islamic University Award for Scientific Research for the year 2021.
He was also ranked among the top 2% of researchers around the world in 2021.
