Office of the Provost

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Office of the Provost

The Office of the Provost provides institutional support for the development, review, and implementation of academic policies and educational initiatives that advance enhancements in learning and teaching experiences.

In particular, the scope of the Office’s efforts encompasses:

Advancement of the university-wide approaches to improving the quality of education delivery;
Provision of institutional oversight to enhance the overall quality of instruction, curriculum design, and program management;
Support of academic professionals in applying innovations in teaching and learning;
Support of institutional planning and effectiveness through institutional research;
Promotion of technology-enhanced learning processes across the university;
Coordination of external institutional review processes.

Senior Leadership

Rehan Sadiq

Provost

Prof. Sadiq is a world-renowned researcher and academic leader whose research in asset management of water supply systems, environmental risk analysis, and lifecycle assessment of the built environment has earned international acclaim. His 800

publications, with approximately 29,000 citations, place him among the 100 top-cited civil engineering researchers worldwide. Prof. Sadiq is a Fellow of five major professional societies and engineering associations in Canada and has been honored with the prestigious CSCE Albert E. Berry Medal for his contributions to environmental engineering. He joins NU from his role as Provost and Vice-President Academic (Okanagan campus), Professor of Civil Engineering, and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia (UBC). As Provost and member of UBC Executive, he led or co-led key strategic initiatives to strengthen the University, including increasing the number of international students at UBC Okanagan campus, securing significant number of additional government funded student places in health and technology related areas, launching new programs (at Bachelor, Masters and Doctoral levels) in engineering, business, education, health and natural sciences, and consolidating UBC’s position among the world’s finest universities (41st in Times Higher Education ranking).

Loretta O’Donnell

Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs

The vice-provost for academic affairs assists the provost in carrying out his responsibilities for academic matters (academic planning, learning and teaching, integrating research into teaching). Doctor Loretta O’Donnell was appointed to this post

in August 2013. She presents on Eurasian higher education themes at international conferences including: ASEF (Asian European Foundation) Rectors’ Conference; Eurasian Higher Education Leaders’ Forum; Times Higher Education Asian Universities Summit and University Alliance of the Silk Road and the NU Annual Gender Forum. She has more than twenty years of experience in teaching Executive MBA, postgraduate and undergraduate business students in the Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales (UNSW) located in Sydney, Australia. As an elected faculty member of the UNSW Academic Board, and as Associate Dean of Education, she combined academic policy development and implementation with her teaching, learning and research interests. She was program director for the UNSW AGSM Graduate Certificate in Change Management and for the Masters of Commerce program. Dr. O’Donnell has won awards for her teaching and for research on human capital analysis in financial markets. Previously, she consulted in organizational change for a large global firm in Sydney and Chicago and in a boutique firm specializing in developing management systems to sustain change. Her academic qualifications include PhD in Management (Macquarie Graduate School of Management); MBA (AGSM, UNSW), Graduate Diploma in Education and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) (N’cle).

Zhumabay Bakenov

Acting Vice Provost for Research and Innovation

Professor Bakenov holds a Doctor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Kazakh National Academy of Science, and an M.Sc. in Chemistry from Al-Farabi Kazakh National

University. He is an Academician of the National Academy of Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the first recipient of the State Award “Honored Figure in Science and Technology of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (2025).

Aida Sagintayeva

Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Budget and Dean of the Graduate School of Education

Doctor Sagintayeva (Ph.D., Ablai Khan Kazakh University of International Relations and World Languages) is a person who started her professional career from being a faculty at M. H. Dulati Taraz State University. Dr. Sagintayeva was a Vice-Rector

for International Cooperation at the Eurasian National University. She has been involved in educational research projects at the Ministry of Education and Science on gearing Kazakhstan’s higher education system towards the European three-tiered degree system and has coordinated a ministerial initiative aimed at introducing Western PhD programmes in Kazakhstan. Also she was formerly president of the Bolashak International Scholarship Office. Dr. Sagintayeva is the author and co-author of more than 50 scientific journal articles and several methodological books dealing with language issues, foreign language education, educational reforms, internationalization of higher education, educational policy, and administration in higher education.

Luis Ramón Rojas-Solórzano

Associate Provost for Graduate Studies

Doctor Luis Ramón Rojas-Solórzano is a visionary, strategic, and proactive academic leader who has built a successful career in higher education for more than 30 years. He got his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 1997 at Carnegie Mellon

University, USA. He started his academic career in 1988 after a three-year stint in the industry. He got his bachelor's in mechanical engineering and MSc in hydraulics engineering at the Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela (1985, 1991), which was the place where he grew his first 25 years in academia, retiring as a tenured, full professor in 2013. Doctor Rojas-Solórzano has been a visiting professor and scientist in the USA (Carnegie Mellon University, Phillips-Respironics, DRESSER-RAND), France (IMT-Atlantique, Nantes), Spain (UPC), Portugal (UNL-NSCT), and Peru (PUCP). After joining NU in 2013, Doctor Rojas-Solórzano has served as head of Graduate Programs, and most recently, director of Graduate Studies in SEDS, successfully applying the NU graduate framework to masters and doctoral programs. Doctor Rojas-Solórzano is an experienced academic who practices a student-centered educational approach and respects the multiple and varied perspectives of his peer faculty, staff, students, and the community he has served. He believes that influential educational leaders of today appreciate diversity as a valuable resource to strengthen inclusion and enhance excellence in higher education. The associate provost of Graduate Studies oversees academic and administrative support to ensure a high-quality educational experience for all NU masters and doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars. Dr. Rojas was appointed to this post in January 2022. In September 2022, he received the inaugural "NASA POWER/RETScreen Excellence Award, Category: Educators and Researchers," recognizing his achievements in research-integrated teaching of clean energy technologies.

Office: №4006, Block C2
Phone: + 7 (7172) 70 90 45
Mail: provostoffice@nu.edu.kz
Address: 53, Kabanbay batyr Ave., 010000, Astana, Kazakhstan