Tewfik is an Egyptian-American electrical engineer, professor and college administrator who currently serves as the chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin since October 1, 2010.
He holds the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering #1 at UT Austin.
For his research and contributions to the field of Signal Processing he was awarded the 2017 IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award as well as the IEEE Third Millennium Award in 2000.
He is the 2018–2019 IEEE Signal Processing Society President-Elect.