Fadlo R. Khuri

Fadlo R. Khuri the 16th president of the American University of Beirut, was elected in March 2015 and assumed office in September 2015. A Lebanese-American oncologist specializing in the study of cancers of the lung and aerodigestive tract. He is the former deputy director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, as well as the former chair of the Emory University School of Medicine's department of hematology and medical oncology. He is the editor-in-chief of the medical journal Cancer.

Khuri was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. When he was a medical student, Khuri originally planned on becoming a psychiatrist until he saw a rabbi with cancer on the first day of his surgery rotation. He received his bachelor's degree from Yale University and his M.D. from Columbia University. He then completed his residency in internal medicine at the Boston City Hospital.

Khuri was a faculty member at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center from 1995 until 2002. The following year, he joined the Winship Cancer Institute. He served as a trustee of the American University of Beirut since 2014. He has also been a member of Naef K. Basile Foundation Board of Trustees since 2005, and a member of the Atlanta International School Board of Trustees since 2009. Dr. Khuri has chaired the American University of Beirut Medical School International Advisory Committee since 2010. On March 19, 2015, it was announced that Khuri would be the next president of the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. He assumed the post of president on September 1, 2015. Upon doing so, Khuri moved to Beirut while retaining his professorship at Emory.

In 2013, Khuri received the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research. Khuri was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014. In 2015, he was elected a full member of the Lebanese Academy of Sciences.

Fadlo Khuri is married to Lamya Tannous-Khuri, PhD, who also attended AUB from 1981–84, prior to obtaining a BS in Nutrition at the University of Connecticut. After obtaining a Masters in Nutrition at Columbia University, Dr. Tannous-Khuri obtained her PhD at Columbia in Nutrition in 1993. Together, the Khuris have 3 children, Layla (Yale College Class of 2016), Raja (Emory College Class of 2018), and Rayya, who is an IB student in tenth grade at the Atlanta International School.

Fadlo and Lamya Khuri’s AUB roots run deep. Both of Fadlo Khuri’s maternal great grandfathers graduated from AUB, Jirjis El-Khoury El-Makdisi obtaining his diploma from AUB in 1888, and Fadlo Hourani obtaining his diploma in 1894. His paternal grandfather, Najib N. Khuri, obtained his BA in Mathematics from AUB in 1910. His father, the late Raja N. Khuri graduated from college and medical school at AUB with high distinction, winning the Penrose Award, the University’s highest scholastic honor on both occasions (1955 and 1959), and his mother, Soumaya Khuri, graduated AUB with high distinction in Mathematics in 1959, before obtaining an AM from Harvard and a PhD from Yale University. Fadlo Khuri’s brother, Ramzi Khuri, is a graduate of Yale (BS, MS, summa cum laude, 1986), and Princeton University (PhD, 1991). Raja Khuri served as Professor and Chair of Physiology (1968–78), Dean of the Medical School (1978–87) at AUB, and his family and friends endowed the Deanship of Medicine in his honor. Soumaya Khuri served in the Department of Mathematics from 1974-1986, departing as a full professor.

Lamya Khuri’s grandfather, Dr. Izzat Tannous, graduated AUB undergraduate and medical school with distinction, and both her parents, Dr. Raja and Lydia Tannous, attended AUB, with Dr. Raja Tannous serving as founding chair of the department of Nutrition and Food Sciences in the School of Agriculture at AUB and twice as acting Dean of that school.