Academics

Research at AUC

Giving to AUC

Student Life

News and Events

Biography

Speeches and Interviews

Presidential Internship Program

Former Presidents

Presidential Internship Program

As a private university founded in 1919, The American University in Cairo serves a unique and important function in Egypt. AUC is the only university in Egypt that provides an American form of higher education. English is the language of instruction, and the curriculum emphasizes the liberal arts. Approximately 90 percent of AUC's 5,000 degree students are Egyptian; the remainder comes from elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. In addition to degree programs leading to a B.A., B.S., LL.M., M.S., M.B.A., or M.P.P.A., AUC has 30,000 students in an adult education program and 10,000 students in in-service training, primarily in management and engineering. It also operates the Social Research Center and the Desert Development Center, both applied research centers.

In September 2008, AUC relocated to a state-of-the-art campus in New Cairo, a planned community about 45 minutes east of the university’s old downtown location. This new site provides AUC with three times more space for teaching, research and recreation.

Interns for the 2009-2010 academic year will work in offices on the New Campus and will reside in Zamalek, a neighborhood near downtown. Additional information about the New Cairo Campus, AUC and living in Cairo is available here .

Presidential Internship Application

Presidential Brochure

Presidential Internship Application Form

Return Login Account

Former AUC Interns

Anders Blewett (2003-4)
Harvard University

A former AUC presidential intern has been elected as a state representative in Montana Anders Blewett won the three-way race with nearly 54 percent of the votes.

Blewett, who ran as a Democrat, practices law for the Hoyt and Blewett law firm, which is based in Great Falls, Virginia. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University where he also played football – going on to playing for the Billings Outlaws, Montana's national indoor football team. Blewett received his law degree from the University of Montana.

Eve Troutt Powell (1983-1984)
Harvard University

Powell, associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, has recently been named a recipient of a "no strings attached" $500,000 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Troutt Powell is the only faculty member in the southeastern United States and one of only four faculties from four-year colleges and universities to be named a 2003 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Her research revolves around nationalism in the Middle East, Arabic literature, and the area's slavery in the late 19th century. She sees teaching as an opportunity to "open people's eyes" about the cultural and historical riches of the Middle East. She is currently a Lilly Teaching Fellow at UGA and her most recent book, Different Shades of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain and the Mastery of the Sudan, 1865-1925, rewrote the traditional historical narrative of the British post-colonialist legacy to include the impact of race-relations and ethnicity.

Syed Sadiq Reza (1986-1987)
Princeton University

Reza is an associate professor at New York University where he teaches Islamic law. Specializing in criminal law and procedure, Sadiq is a former public defender in Washington, D.C. and an award-winning teaching fellow at Harvard University of an undergraduate course on Islam and the modern Middle East. In 2004-2005, he was a visiting researcher at the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School, his alma mater. Reza¹s writing has been published in the Harvard International Law Journal, Fordham Urban Law Journal, New York Law Journal and The Washington Post .

Linda Bishai (1987-1988)
Harvard University

Bishai is senior program officer of the education program of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where she focuses on secondary and university education in international relations, conflict resolution, human rights, and peace studies. She is responsible for curriculum development and developing faculty and teacher workshops throughout the United States and in conflict zones, especially the Sudan. Before USIP, Bishai was an assistant professor of political science at Towson University, where she taught courses in international relations, international law, the use of force, and human rights. She has also taught at Brunel University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Stockholm. During 2003–2004, Bishai served as a Supreme Court Fellow at the Federal Judicial Center, where she worked on an introduction to international human rights law for the federal judiciary. Bishai earned her J.D. from Georgetown University and her Ph.D. in international relations from the London School of Economics.

Dwan Dixon (1998-1999)
Brown University

Dixon is a program officer for Pact’s community outreach rapid response mechanism to HIV/AIDS, and lives in South Africa. She was a member of the research team that put out Building Monitoring, Evolution and Reporting Systems for HIV/AIDS Programs. Dixon completed her master’s degree in public health from George Washington University in 2004. After graduating, she worked for Family Health International's Institute for HIV/AIDS, a non-profit organization in Washington, DC.

Simon O’Rourke (1992-1993)
Connecticut College

Following his internship at AUC, O’Rourke worked as the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Casablanca, Morocco. In 2001 he moved to New York to work at the Near East Foundation and was soon after promoted to the position of director of development. He works as a liaison between the board of directors of the foundation and the International Council and country offices. This past summer, he lived in Syria, working with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture on archeological and historical preservation of a Temple at Aleppo.

Danica Lo (1999-2000)
Dartmouth College

After AUC, Lo earned a master's in Women's Studies at Oxford and an MA in fashion at London's Central Saint Martin's. Currently she is a fashion writer living in New York. Her first book, "How Not to Look Fat," was published by HarperCollins in May 2006. She was interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America and has appeared on shows like Fox and Friends and Good Day NY.

Janina Safran (1984-1985)
Harvard University

Safran is associate professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University. She is the author of a monograph, The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in al-Andalus, as well as articles on the political culture of al-Andalus and, more recently, on communal and religious identity and differentiation in al-Andalus. She is currently a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellow.

Sean Brooks (2004-2005)
Davidson College

Brooks found his way back to Cairo in the summer of 2008 dedicating this return to intensive Fusha lessons and research for his master's thesis in international relations at Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Since finishing his AUC internship, Brooks has been working with the Save Darfur Coalition in Washington, D.C. as an International Associate – a position he retains part-time while now back in school. Over the last year, he has helped the Darfuri Diaspora in the U.S. and around the world build a network of activist leaders to advocate for peace and protection in Darfur and throughout Sudan.

Robtel Pailey (2004-2005)
Howard University

Pailey completed a master's degree in African Studies at the University of Oxford in England in 2006. Upon completion of her degree, she accepted a position to work in the new administration of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She currently serves as special assistant for communications in the Ministry of State/Office of the President.