{"id":27,"date":"2016-10-03T12:55:41","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T19:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/summer-2016\/?p=27"},"modified":"2016-10-04T13:14:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T20:14:06","slug":"key-contribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.hmc.edu\/summer-2016\/key-contribution\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Contribution"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Syrian civil war arrived at his<\/strong> doorstep, Ahmad Adib Sha\u2019ar knew it was time to leave.<\/p>\n

His departure brought him to the U.S. and, ultimately, to a visiting professorship at Harvey Mudd College, where Sha\u2019ar will teach at least one course within the realm of cryptography, programming algorithms, information theory and radar theory. He also will continue his groundbreaking research into prime codes and the wireless communication technique known as code division multiple access (CDMA). Sha\u2019ar has wasted no time settling into his new academic environment.<\/p>\n

\"Ahmad
Ahmad Adib Sha\u2019ar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Already, Sha\u2019ar, who is visiting under the Institute of International Education\u2019s Scholar Rescue Fund, has lectured on his departure from Syria and the circuitous route he took to avoid ISIS as well as a longstanding primary research interest: the application of CDMA to radar. His stay, which will continue through the 2016\u20132017 academic year, involves lecturing to students and assisting them with their own research.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy plan was to retire in my traditional house in Aleppo,\u201d says Sha\u2019ar, who left Syria with his wife, Sawsan, and two sons (five children preceded them in leaving). \u201cI did not anticipate the violence and destruction that would prevent me from fulfilling that dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the war has cost him dearly. Not only was he forced from his home when his family\u2019s safety was threatened and utility services became scarce, but his brother was killed in a rocket attack.<\/p>\n

Born in Aleppo, Sha\u2019ar was educated at Kent University in Canterbury, the United Kingdom, where he earned an M.S. degree in digital communications and a PhD in computer networks. He returned to the Middle East, where he joined the academic staff at Assad Academy of Military Engineering and Mamoun Private University for Science and Technology, both in Syria, and King Khaled University in Saudi Arabia. In the early 1980s, he co-invented prime sequencing codes for fiber optics, later applying them to radar and collision engineering algorithms, and co-authored a definitive paper titled \u201cA survey of one-coincidence sequences for frequency-hopped spread-spectrum systems,\u201d which describes the methods of primary code sequences designed to minimize channel interference from multiple users.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had an interest in solving big things; however, I have some difficulty dealing with smaller things,\u201d says Sha\u2019ar. With a chuckle, the wireless communication protocol authority offered a paradoxical example: \u201cFor instance, my 17-year-old son is better than I am at understanding mobile phone instructions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon arriving in the U.S. through a Scholar Rescue Fund fellowship, Sha\u2019ar worked as a visiting professor at Salisbury University in Maryland, teaching a course on codes in communications and computer systems. IIE-SRF fellowships enable outstanding professors, researchers and public intellectuals from countries in turmoil to pursue their academic work in safety and to continue to share their knowledge with students, colleagues and the community. When the position at Salisbury ended, Sha\u2019ar looked toward Harvey Mudd College, which by then seemed as far away as possible from the fighting in Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no water, no electricity, no Internet and, most important, no security in Aleppo,\u201d says Sha\u2019ar, who once narrowly escaped a rocket attack. \u201cMy children were protesting against the government, and I knew it was too dangerous to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physics\/engineering alumnus and HMC Board of Trustees member Mahesh Kotecha \u201970, who introduced the College to the Rescue Scholars program, another trustee and a third donor helped to fund the Sha\u2019ars stay. In Claremont, the Sha\u2019ars are happy, settled and enjoying the charm of the community and Southern California. Sha\u2019ar already is immersed in his work: Typically used in cellular and other telecommunications networks, CDMA had not previously been applied to fiber optics. An ongoing challenge remains radar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we began our work, there was no existing scientific effort to apply CDMA to radars,\u201d he says. \u201cIn fact, nobody put such a challenge in front of me. I fabricated this challenge, and we solved it by recommending the use of our fiber optic CDMA-modified prime codes to radars in order to control the pulse repetition interval agility of a set of adjacent radars. We demonstrated algebraically the effectiveness of the suggested code sets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sha\u2019ar now has a new challenge that he\u2019s embracing wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarvey Mudd College has some really talented students,\u201d he says. \u201cAs I begin my time here, I can\u2019t think of anything I\u2019m more looking forward to doing than sharing my knowledge with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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