Joseph Elie Aoun (Arabic: ????? ???) (born March 26, 1953 in Beirut, Lebanon) is the seventh president of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he took office on August 15, 2006.
Previously, Aoun was dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences at the University of Southern California.
He joined USC in 1982 in the Department of Linguistics, and during his time at USC served as head of the academic Senate.
As a theoretical syntactician, he is known for his work on logical form and wh-movement.
Aoun's 2016 salary was $1,311,729, with an additional $204,775 per year in other compensation.He is married to Zeina and has two sons, Adrian and Joseph Karim.