Education Department Associate Professor Rola Khishfe has been training K-12 grade teachers how to teach students to argue, debate, and interact with one another on topics related to science and nature – in a way that allows them to disagree, but always in a civil manner. Evidence-based discussions on science and nature issues – like climate change…

Dr Rihab Nasr, Tenured professor at the department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences and director of cancer prevention and control program at the Naef K Basile Cancer Institute at the AUB Medical Center, has been internationally recognized for her breakthroughs in detecting leukemia and breast cancer at an early stage. She and her…

Internationally renowned Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck’s new collection is published this week by Penguin Poets – the first Arab poet they publish. She graduated from AUB with BA and MA degrees, and has been recognized and published across the world. In this discussion, she explains how the title of this book, ‘O’, captures the ’o’ in body, love,…

Food Security Program Director at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences Rami Zurayk analyzes the many dimensions of food security and insecurity, and how the Ukraine war has worsened stresses for many people around the world. Alongside Ukraine, he mentioned other factors that impact food availability, like climate change, sanctions, the Covi…

Ten years ago, English Department Lecturer in Creative Writing Rima Rantisi and some colleagues in a Hamra pub came up with the idea of launching a new student literary journal. Today, Rusted Radishes is published once a year in Arabic and English, and is open to AUB students and faculty and others across the Arab region. It has expanded beyond lit…

Associate Professor of English Tariq Mehmood creates and teaches across a wide spectrum of original work, including poetry, novels for adolescents, films, documentaries, archival research, teaching and advising students, and analyzing, and now creating, video games. The new minor in video gaming at AUB aims to counter the gaming world’s prevalent g…

Who is responsible for alleviating or reducing the harm done to millions of people due to racism, colonialism, climate change, poverty and wars? AUB Philosophy professor and Mohammad Atallah Chair in Ethics Bashshar Haydar explains his research into this question and others, such as: what do we do about “innocent beneficiaries” of harmful conduct w…

Dr Lana Salman, with her BA and MSc degrees from AUB, recently completed her PhD at University of California-Berkeley and is now a post-doctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she is preparing a book on her research into local politics and citizen-state interactions in Tunisia. In this chat she retraces her journey in academia…

Iman Nuwayhid’s decades of experience as professor of environmental health, dean of the AUB Faculty of Public Health, and this year a visiting professor at Yale University, prompt him to call for a new way to address public health issues. In this interview he links three pivotal historical events in the USA and Arab lands – George Floy’s killing in…

Dr. Jamil Mouawad, lecturer in the Political Studies and Public Administration Dept at AUB, has studied Lebanese politics for decades; he is publishing a new book on the nature of the state in Lebanon and how its citizens interact with the state. He explains his theory of Lebanon as a deliberately weakened and cannibalized state whose political eli…

AUB Photojournalist-in-Residence George Azar in the Media Studies Program has covered the Middle Eats for the past 40 years for top Western and Middle Eastern media, including the New York Times, AP, Al Jazeera, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He explains how his ‘observational documentaries’ strive to tell human stories that also shed light on larg…

Marc Ayoub coordinated the energy policy and security program at AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, where he and colleagues worked on critical issues in the energy sector – which mostly remain unresolved. Now he’s an Associate Fellow at IFI while mainly researching energy issues at the University of Limerick in…

Dr. Sonja Mejcher-Atassi, Associate Professor of English, has spent years documenting the story of an extraordinary group of young men and women, Christians, Muslims and Jews from Palestine, Lebanon, and Germany, who met weekly at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in the period immediately before the Nakba of 1948. Some of them went on to become in…

Dr. Hiba Khodr, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Public Management, and a visiting scholar this year at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, is systematically analyzing how the four simultaneous crises in Lebanon have impacted society and how civil society has responded. She is exploring how three local organizations in thefields of hea…

Danyel Reiche, tenured associate professor of comparative politics at AUB, has studied for many years the relationship of sports to culture, religion, identity and other issues. He is on leave this year at Georgetown University-Qatar, where he directs the research initiative “Building a Legacy: Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022." He explains how the World …

Assistant Professor Nikolas Kosmatopoulos, in the Graduate Program in Public Policy and International Affairs and the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, had led a research and teaching project on the hidden dimensions of the Mediterranean Sea, especially in politics and international relations. He explains how the sea matter…

Clinical Dietician May Sakr, with 20 years of experience at AUBMC’s Department of Clinical Nutrition, speaks music to our ears when she advises us to “enjoy what makes you happy” – but she simultaneously speaks science when she says that while we eat what pleases us we must also balance among all the food groups and exercise regularly. She explains…

What do we know about the status of women in leadership positions in business? We now know quite a lot, thanks to Dr Lama Moussawi, tenured associate professor and associate dean for research and faculty development at the Olayan School of Business, and her colleagues at the Center for Inclusive Business and Leadership for Women. Three years ago th…

The career of Professor Salma Talhouk in the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management, started as a biodiversity conservation ‘lab scientist’, and has transformed her into a ‘people scientist’. She explains her journey as one of understanding that we protect nature by getting people to directly enjoy nature. This requires changing be…

Associate Professor and Psychiatry Department Chair Dr Fadi Maalouf expects a mental health pandemic to hit Lebanon and the Middle East after the COVID crisis recedes –at a time when just 5 percent of mental health patients receive treatment, compared to 50 percent globally. In this episode he reviews the growing worry and anxiety symptoms among ch…

When the COVID-19 virus hit two years ago, AUB Associate Professor of pathology, virology and immunology Hassan Zaraket spiked to a new level of action. He adjusted his lab research -- on the genetic makeup of viruses and their spread, mutations, and vaccine responses -- to develop new diagnostic tests that can be used on the front line of public h…

Professor Sumru Altug, Chair of the AUB Economics Department, explores whether geographical proximity can stimulate economic growth and diversification in nearby countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Her analysis of the impact of trade, physical proximity, and institutions suggests that the spillover effect is limited, other than workers’ …

Associate professor of hydrogeology in the Geology Department, Dr. Joanna Doummar, explains the existing stresses on the limited and erratic quantities of groundwater reserves in Lebanon, which is the main source of fresh water for most countries in the region. By monitoring flows of water into complex underground aquifers, she models the operation…

Professor Elie Shammas of the mechanical engineering department has investigated and created robotic and bio-robotic “shape controllable structures” that perform duties beyond the abilities of human brings – like remotely controlled snake robots that slide and slither wherever they are needed. He explains the progress he and his colleagues have mad…

Economics professor and former director of the Institute of Financial Economics, Simon Neaime, sees hard times ahead as Lebanon’s problematic political class shows no will to fix the country’s economic decline. He sees added pressures from regional stresses of poverty, inequality, and unemployment, though countries like Jordan and Egypt have taken …

Joseph Costantine, Associate Professors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at AUB, helps chart the future of wearable electromagnetic devices that measure various human body conditions like blood sugar or cancer. He explains how he embarked on this path that has led to his being chosen one of ten World Economic Forum global young…

Dr. Faysal Kak’s research and policy interventions have covered a wide range of issues related to women’s reproductive and sexual health in Lebanon and the region. This includes rising and falling maternal mortality rates, and empowering youth by integrating sexuality and rights into community life in conservative societies. As Senior Lecturer of H…

AUB chemical engineering MSc student Elsy Milan uses 3D computer modelling to investigate how CO2 in the atmosphere can be captured and safely stored underground in depleted oil and gas reservoirs. Her pioneering work analyzes data from 42 projects around the world to determine if available subsurface spaces could safely store CO2 in the atmosphere…

Senior lecturer in English and comparative literature Sirene Harb was just honored by the Arab American Book Awards for her publication Articulations of Resistance Transformative Practices in Contemporary Arab-American Poetry. She explains her analyses of Arab-American poets, especially women, who represent their own understandings of time, space, …

AUB Assistant Professor of Psychiatry Elias Ghossoub analyzed global research to identify high risk factors for homicide-suicides – when someone kills someone and then commits suicide – during high stress periods such as pandemics. Because these rare events have such serious consequences, Dr Ghossoub and his colleagues have analyzed data in Lebanon…

Rida Elias, assistant professor at the Olayan School of Business, explains what she has discovered by researching top leadership succession in corporations. Too often CEOs, whose work is 75% with people and institutions outside the firm, refuse to leave power. This leads to messy successions, which is why she recommends 4-6-month-long transition pe…

AUB’s Laboratories for the Environment, Agriculture and Food (LEAF), directed by Associate Professor Mohamad Abiad of the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, explains how the labs play a national role well beyond the university campus. They regularly sample and test food, water, soil, and air samp…

Alissar Yehya is an assistant professor in AUB’s civil and environmental engineering department whose research in Lebanon aims to bridge the gaps between engineering solutions, environmental sustainability, social justice, and gender equity. She does this by exploring technical and social dimensions of “period poverty” among women who lack access t…

Marco Bardus, assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences department of health promotion and community health, has spent his last 15 years at AUB exploring how digital technologies – cellphones, apps, laptops and others – can successfully promote health interventions. He has experimented with digital social marketing that targets individu…

Lara Nasreddine, tenured professor of nutrition and food sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences, has conducted research since 2007 that identifies alarming trends in diet-related diseases across Lebanon. She explains how diet is among the top three risk factors for death, how youth are a most vulnerable age group for food marketer…

AUB professor of chemistry Bilal Kaafarani describes how in his 18 years at AUB he has pioneered new means of “transformative education” that allow students to learn by engaging in activities beyond the classroom. He explains the benefits and power of “experiential learning” opportunities by which undergraduate students partner with alumni, profess…

Dr Ghazi Zaatari, professor and chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at AUB Medical Center, is a world leader in studying the impact of tobacco on people’s health and advocating for reducing the use of tobacco products. He founded the Tobacco Research Group at AUB and heads the WHO Study Group on Tobacco Products Regulation. In this episode h…

Dr Nuhad Dumit, Associate Professor at the Hariri School of Nursing and coordinator of the Nursing Administration and Management Track Masters degree, explains how she and her colleagues have spent years understanding the many factors that prompt Lebanese nurses to emigrate abroad – or from rural areas to Beirut – which has resulted in a serious sh…

Joe Bahout, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) and associate professor of Political Studies and Public Administration, analyzes the stresses and weaknesses of today’s Arab states that largely ignored or marginalized their societies and citizens. The resurgence of society on the national stage tod…

Sahar Assaf, on leave from her post as AUB Assistant Professor of Theater Arts and co-director of the Theater Initiative, is executive artistic director of the Golden Thread Productions company in San Francisco. She recounts her lifelong professional and personal journey from her youth in Lebanon, when she saw theater as an escape into an alternati…

Tenured Professor of Pediatric Neurology and Neurogenetics Rose Mary Boustani has spent decades at AUB and Duke University tracking down the individual molecules, genes, and cells that cause rare childhood and adolescent diseases that had long been seen as incurable. She explains how she and her colleagues achieved several breakthroughs that have i…

Dr. Omar Sirri, affiliated scholar at AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, recently received his PhD degree at the University of Toronto. He discusses his years of research on the symbolism, roles, and fate of security checkpoints across Baghdad since the 2003 invasion, and how they link to issues of identity, se…

Professor Rima Habib, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the Faculty of Health Sciences, has spent decades studying the health and living conditions of low-income marginalized communities in Lebanon. Her latest research reveals the many dangers facing Syrian refugee working children aged 8-18, including injury, verbal and physical a…

Assistant Professor of Medicine Carine Sakr-Chaptini, Director of the AUB Expert Committee on COVID-19, explains how she and her colleagues are continuously humbled to keep learning about how the virus operates and how people react to measures to contain it. Science and data drive AUB’s policy response to protect its community and all Lebanon, but …

Fadi El-Jardali, tenured Associate Professor of Health Policy and Systems in AUB’s Faculty of Health Sciences, founded and still leads the pioneering Knowledge To Policy (K2P) center at AUB, which identifies how scholars can channel their research knowledge to positively influence policy-making. This effort is all the more vital in emergency situat…

Dr George Saliba, Professor and Director of AUB’s Farouk Jabre Center for Arabic and Islamic Science and Philosophy, explains how his research identifies how Arab and Greek scholars and philosophers jointly articulated new knowledge that went on to spark the European Renaissance. His research also offers new ideas on why European powers rose and Ar…

Professor Alan Shihadeh, dean of the Maroun Simaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, explains what he and his colleagues have learned in AUB’s Aerosols Research Lab over the last 20 years. From water pipe smoking to Beirut’s air after the port explosion and mass use of diesel generators, aerosols are often dangerous to our health, he notes. …

Sari Hanafi, AUB Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Islamic Studies program, is also the President of the International Sociological Association. In this episode he explains his journey from analyzing knowledge production in the Arab region to how scientific research can reach policy-makers, and to his current research on why a deep dialog is …

Associate Professor of Education Rima Karami describes how her on-the-ground research in primary and secondary schools in Lebanon and other Arab countries identifies reasons for the education system’s weak performance – and how to work with students, teachers, and principals to raise standards and student learning outcomes.…

Education Department Associate Professor and developmental psychologist Tamer Amin is analyzing common language metaphors and diagrams that science teachers use – but which some students may not fully comprehend. He explains how his study of language usage, simulations, and the learning process identify weak spots in science learning today, while a…