A Georgia Tech associate professor has been arrested and charged with 15 counts of sexual exploitation of children.

The university previously suspended Faiz Al-Khayyal without pay for violating the computer-use policy. Illicit computer activity prompted the university to contact law enforcement, according to Matt Nagel, university spokesman.

Wednesday night, Al-Khayyal was arrested and booked into the Fulton County jail.

He had been under investigation since last week by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

“The alleged behavior, if true, is deplorable and falls far short of our expectations for how we believe faculty should behave,” Nagel said in a statement Wednesday night.

Al-Khayyal earned a Ph.D. in operations research from George Washington University in 1977, according to his biography on the Georgia Tech Web site.

The university has not determined whether Al-Khayyal will continue to teach in the school of industrial and systems engineering.

“The Institute is continuing to cooperate with the investigation and will take appropriate action upon its completion,” Nagel said.

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Orange Crush event organizer Steven Smalls looks out at Tybee Island's South Beach, site of the 2025 HBCU spring break festival scheduled for April 19 on Georgia's coast. (Justin Taylor/The Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Credit: Justin Taylor for The Atlanta Journal Constitution