Rate My Professor Ahmed Zayed

Ahmed Zayed is a prominent mathematician whose career includes significant contributions in the field of Mathematics at the University of Central Florida. He obtained his Bachelor's degree from Cairo University in 1970, Master's degree in Applied Mathematics from Cairo University in 1974, and Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1979, with his dissertation titled Generalized Functions and Boundary Value Problems supervised by Gilbert G. Walter and Marya Alin Ziko. Zayed commenced his academic career as an assistant professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 1980, progressing to associate professor and then full professor. In 1990, he joined the Department of Mathematics at the University of Central Florida, serving as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies from 1999 to 2001. His research during this period and beyond focuses on applied mathematics and harmonic analysis, encompassing generalized functions, Schwartz distributions, special functions and orthogonal polynomials, integral transforms such as the fractional Fourier transform and wavelets, and sampling theory including Whittaker-Shannon-Kotel'nikov sampling and its applications in signal and image processing.

Throughout his tenure at UCF and subsequently as Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at DePaul University from 2001 to 2021, Zayed has produced influential works that have shaped the field. Key publications include his books Advances in Shannon's Sampling Theory (CRC Press, 1993), Handbook of Function and Generalized Function Transformations (CRC Press, 1996), and Fractional Integral Transforms: Theory and Applications (CRC Press, 2024). He co-edited Sampling, Wavelets, and Tomography with John J. Benedetto (Birkhäuser, 2004) and Multiscale Signal Analysis and Modeling with Xiaoping Shen (Springer, 2013). Notable collaborations at UCF include The Radon Transform of Boehmians with Piotr Mikusiński (1993) and An Extension of the Radon Transform. Zayed has authored over 180 publications and received several awards for excellence in research and online course design. He currently chairs the Steering Committee of SampTa, the international conference series on Sampling Theory and Applications, highlighting his enduring impact on mathematical analysis and its applications.