“For every additional year of schooling a girl receives on average, her country’s resilience to climate disasters can be expected to improve by 3.2 points on the ND-GAIN Country Index, which calculates a country’s vulnerability to climate change in relation to its resilience.”
This was one of the findings by Omar Basyouny, a mechanical engineering student and Tomorrow’s Leaders Gender Scholars (TLS) alum, whose research examined the intricate relationship between gender equality and climate change. His paper, “Climate Change and Gender Inequality,” which was published in Intersect: The Stanford University Journal of Science, Technology and Society, suggests that gender inequality can have a profound impact on climate change.
“As climate change drives conflict across the world, women become the ones who face increased vulnerabilities to all forms of gender-based violence,” Basyouny said. “Gender inequality is exacerbated by factors of poverty, lack of education, harmful social norms and practices, and insecurities.”
Basyouny’s research focus was to illustrate how advancing gender equality would bring substantial advantages to the world at large. “I wanted to highlight how empowering women – socially, educationally, economically, politically and psychologically – can enable them to contribute their efforts in navigating global challenges,” he affirmed.
In his paper, Basyouny argues that the detrimental effects of stigmatized traditional roles for women make them more prone to early marriage. “Child marriage is greatly interconnected with high fertility rates, contributing to a significant increase in population, which thus have adverse implications on our climate conditions,” he explained.
The solution? Basyouny opts for nuanced root changes. “I believe that climate change can be most effectively controlled and reduced from a new perspective, innovative and out-of-the-ordinary,” he said.
Accordingly, Basyouny stresses the importance of empowering women to take part in climate policy and decision making by removing gender disparities in education and the work field. “Equitable access to education can equip women with the information, skills and resources to lead climate action at multiple levels,” Basyouny said. Providing job opportunities for women, namely in the green sector, could lead to more environmentally sustainable action, he added.
Basyouny credits his yearlong journey in the TLS program, funded by the U.S. Department of State, for further developing his interest in gender studies. The scholarship gave him access to numerous workshops, gender-related activities, training sessions, and mentorship under well-established professors, equipping him with the tools he needed to navigate his research and the intersectional angle between gender and environmental problems.
“TLS has been an indispensable companion throughout my research and publication journey. It helped me in becoming more gender-sensitive,” he explained.
Moving forward, Basyouny is adamant about making a positive impact as an influential mechanical engineer and social scientist. He hopes that by striking a balance between the two, he could successfully work toward addressing global challenges. His current research is focused on aerospace, green mechanical technologies, space exploration and climate change.
Basyouny attributes his diverse interests to AUC’s liberal arts program and the TLS program, which both gave him well-rounded knowledge in diverse fields and disciplines. “It’s important to work on topics outside my major, tackling more societal and economic issues such as gender equality and women’s economic empowerment,” he said. “I wish to find varied solutions to environmental problems” and climate change and gender inequality are just the start.
Photo by Alaric Duan on Unsplash
AUC is kicking off the semester with new academic programs: the University’s first minor in translation studies, biology specializations in biotechnology as well as ecology and conservation, in addition to computer science and engineering specializations in embedded systems and artificial intelligence.
Offered by the Department of Applied Linguistics, the new translation studies minor is geared toward students from any major, according to Reem Bassiouney, professor and department chair. “Training in translation will broaden career opportunities for students in any field, from business and social sciences to medicine and engineering,” she said. “In today's world, there isn’t any business or sector that does not require some form of translation services. However, you can’t do it well without understanding the relationship between language and society, as well as the tools of translation science.”
The minor is open to all undergraduate students at AUC and consists of five courses: two in linguistics and three specifically focused on translation. “To be a good translator, you need to develop some background in linguistics, which is the study of language, its structure and syntax,” explained Bassiouney. “Linguistics helps us understand the importance of language, how it shapes our social world and the way we relate to one another.”
Students will be able to choose from several new offerings covering the theory of translation as well as skill-based courses on subjects including document translation, specialized courses for specific types of documents and simultaneous translation.
Other departments within AUC have also adjusted their offerings ahead of the new school year with the aim of better preparing students for career success.
The Department of Biology is now offering two new specializations for its Bachelor of Science in biology: one in biotechnology and another in ecology and conservation. These specializations will replace previous concentrations in marine biology as well; as molecular and cell biology.
“This program restructuring was driven by our dedication to offering a curriculum that includes the latest and most applicable biological disciplines,” said Ahmed Moustafa, professor and chair of the Department of Biology. “The new specializations seamlessly complement the foundational knowledge in our biology program. They empower students to grasp the real-world applications of these subject areas within the biological sciences. This not only enriches their academic perspective but also broadens their career horizons, positioning them as top contenders for roles in research, industry and conservation.”
Additionally, the Computer Science and Engineering Department will now offer specializations in embedded systems and artificial intelligence for its Bachelor of Science programs to cater to the rapidly evolving and expanding field, creating a need for new skills and expertise in the workforce.
“These specializations are increasingly sought out by employers both in Egypt and abroad,” said Sherif Aly ‘91, professor and department chair. “We have been offering courses in both areas for some time, but the specializations formalize these two tracks within our programs. They will now be listed on student degrees upon graduation, providing them with an additional credential as they enter the workforce.”
“Navigating a massive city such as Cairo encompasses a wide array of challenges and gender inequalities, from walking in the streets and riding public transportation to dealing with physical and social limitations, as well as the absence of public space. These are all encounters that raise questions about harassment and women's rights. Students should reimagine how this can be different,” said Momen El-Husseiny, assistant professor in the Department of Architecture.
This is what students in the new course, Gender as a Design Lens, sought to do –– find solutions to pressing social challenges such as public space sexual harassment, designing women-only areas in health clubs and mosques, and improving the livability of places on campus and in Cairo.
The course divided students into groups and helped them develop a design thinking exercise, where they reflected on a particular challenge they experienced. Course instructors were El-Husseiny; Helen Rizzo, associate professor of sociology; and Magda Mostafa, professor of design in the Department of Architecture.
“This was a great opportunity to bring these fields together in conversation with gender studies and expose the students to design thinking,” said Rizzo, explaining how Cairo's complex problems require interdisciplinary solutions.
Mostafa hopes the course broadens student understanding of the role gender identity plays in multiple facets. “Academic disciplines engage with the notion of gender in different ways and at different levels,” she said. “For example, biology works to try and find quantifiable measures rooted in science that define gender. Sociology engages with gender as a social construct, and design engages with gender as user experiences and identities. The more students understand and can engage in multiple understandings of gender and its correlation with problem solving, the better they will be equipped to make a meaningful, equitable and just impact on the world.”
This multidisciplinarity enabled students to approach projects with a structured and methodical approach. “I was introduced to various concepts related to gender and design, which broadened my understanding of the subject matter and its impact on society,” said Heidi Mohamed, mechanical engineering senior. “But the most thrilling aspect of the course was collaborating with students from diverse academic backgrounds and conducting interviews with individuals on campus whom I may not have had the opportunity to interact with otherwise.”
Maureen Salama, sociology senior, found value in learning that there isn’t a single way to develop a good solution for a given situation. “Empathy allowed us to consider as many people as possible and thus create more inclusive designs,” she said. “However, it’s important to remember that as time goes by, the way stakeholders interact with a design implemented may change over time. We see this happen often when small changes are made to spaces we use daily or the redesign of entire physical spaces.”
The course covered various topics, including gender, access and a sense of safety in public space; mapping gender and public space in the AUC campus and Cairo; gender through a biological lens; and women and mosque design. The course also featured prominent guest speakers. “Each guest lecturer brought their expertise and thus allowed for conversations to go in ways I wouldn’t necessarily expect,” said student Maureen Salama.
El-Husseiny hopes this course empowers students to break norms, barriers and taboos while engaging in problem solving given the existing social, cultural and economic constraints. “Together, we can develop a meaningful, purposeful, effective and sustainable change,” he said. “Cairo is a mosaic of interrelated fields, and we need to enable our students to be well equipped with a future that will be more dynamic and interdisciplinary.”
Hesham Sallam, professor at AUC’s Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology and founder of Mansoura University’s Vertebrate Paleontology Center (MUVP), has done it again.
Today, a team led by the internationally-acclaimed paleontologist announced the discovery of a new species of extinct whale that inhabited the sea covering present-day Egypt around 41 million years ago.
With an estimated length of 2.5 meters and a body mass of approximately 187 kilograms, the new species, named Tutcetus rayanensis, is the smallest basilosaurid whale known to date and one of the oldest records of its family in Africa.
The name of the new whale draws inspiration from Egyptian history and the discovery’s locale. Tutcetus combines "Tut" — referring to the famous adolescent Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun — and "cetus," Greek for whale, highlighting the specimen's small size and young age. Rayanensis refers to the Wadi El-Rayan Protected Area in Fayoum, where the whale was found.
Additionally, the name was chosen to commemorate the centennial of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb and coincides with the forthcoming opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
Despite its modest size, Tutcetus has provided scientists with remarkable insights into the life history, phylogeny and paleobiogeography of early whales.
From Land to Sea
The Basilosauridae, a family of extinct, fully aquatic whales, represent a crucial stage in whale evolution. As they transitioned from land to sea, the basilosauridae developed fish-like characteristics, such as a streamlined body, a strong tail, flippers, and a tail fin. Their hind legs, which previously served them on land, were no longer used for walking but possibly for mating.
"Whales’ evolution from land-dwelling animals to beautiful marine creatures embodies the marvelous, adventurous journey of life,” Sallam said. “Tutcetus is a remarkable discovery that documents one of the first phases of the transition to a fully aquatic lifestyle that took place in that journey.”
The team's findings have been published in Communications Biology, an open-access journal from Nature Portfolio publishing high-quality research, reviews and commentary in all areas of the biological sciences. Through detailed analyses of the teeth and bones of Tutcetus using CT scanning, the team reconstructed the growth and development pattern of the species. Rapid dental development and small bone size suggest that the whale was precocial, meaning it was able to move and feed itself from birth.
The discovery also adds to our understanding of basilosaurids as successful, competitive and adaptable during their transition from land to sea. The team's findings suggest that this transition likely occurred in the (sub)tropics.
“Modern whales migrate to warmer, shallow waters for breeding and reproduction, mirroring the conditions found in Egypt 41 million years ago,” explained Abdullah Gohar, a PhD student at Mansoura University, member of Sallam Lab and a co-author of the study. “This supports the idea that what is now known as Fayoum was a crucial breeding area for ancient whales.”
The study’s lead author, Mohammed Antar, from the MUVP and the National Focal Point for Natural Heritage, added, "Tutcetus significantly broadens the size range of basilosaurid whales and reveals considerable disparity among whales during the middle Eocene period. The investigation of early layers in Fayoum may reveal the existence of an older assemblage of early whale fossils, potentially influencing our current knowledge of the development of whales.”
One thing is certain: this major discovery is likely one of many more to come. In recent years, Sallam and his team’s discoveries include the bones of a 34-million- year-old rodent, a 37-million-year-old gigantic catfish, snake and legless lizard fossils and the first evidence of a 100-million-year-old Abelisauroid, a meat-eating dinosaur, in Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis, among others.
"The Eocene fossil sites of Egypt’s Western Desert have long been the world’s most important for understanding the early evolution of whales and their transition to a fully aquatic existence,” said Erik Seiffert, chair and professor of integrative anatomical sciences at the University of Southern California and a co-author of the study. “The discovery of Tutcetus demonstrates that this region still has so much more to tell us about the fascinating story of whale evolution".
Read more about Sallam’s work in AUCToday.
All pictures courtesy of Hesham Sallam.
This month witnessed the highest global temperature ever recorded in more than 125,000 years, according to international news reports, including CNN, The Washington Post, Forbes and The Guardian, based on date from the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzerr.
With Egypt experiencing an increase in heat waves, News@AUC spoke to Anwar Abdelnaser, assistant professor in the Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology, to examine how the shifts in weather patterns, particularly heatwaves, sandstorms and more frequent thunderstorms, could affect the health and well-being of the country’s population.
What is causing this change in weather?
The heart of the matter lies in understanding two critical phenomena: one natural and the other, unfortunately, man-made. Our Earth has its rhythms, expressed as periodic heatwaves, sandstorms or thunderstorms. However, the crescendo of these climatic symphonies has intensified and their scales broadened, largely due to anthropogenic climate change.
Is this related to climate change?
Indeed yes. Climate change, a silent but relentless sculptor, has reshaped Egypt's weather. As global temperatures rise, our atmosphere, now richer in energy and moisture, stirs up heat waves more frequently and with greater intensity. The heat waves become an invisible specter haunting our cities, especially those suffering from the urban heat island effect. As a result, we face an escalating health crisis, with dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat strokes lying in wait for the most vulnerable among us –– the elderly, chronically ill, outdoor workers and those bereft of adequate cooling facilities. In parallel, our increasingly heated planet disrupts wind patterns, pushing us into the path of more frequent and powerful sandstorms.
What effect does this have on our health?
These dusty specters carry a cloud of health concerns, primarily respiratory conditions like asthma and bronchitis, triggered by the inhalation of fine particulates. Furthermore, they cloak our cities in a veil that makes travel, particularly access to healthcare services, a hazardous endeavor.
In Egypt, there has been a period of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall. What effect does this have health-wise?
While these weather conditions might be a rarer spectacle in Egypt, their repercussions are far from negligible. Flooding, a sudden and uncontrollable menace, poses immediate physical threats. The aftermath of such an event, potentially steeped in waterborne diseases, casts a long, worrying shadow over our public health infrastructure. We cannot turn a blind eye to the unfortunate fact that these climatic afflictions do not dispense their wrath equally. The social gradient in healthcare access implies that marginalized and impoverished communities are expected to face the brunt of these climate impacts.
What needs to be done?
The weather we are experiencing isn’t an act of whimsical Mother Nature. Instead, it’s a critical message and a plea for help in the face of climate change. The urgent call to action involves formulating heat action plans, enhancing our urban landscapes to combat the heat island effect, fortifying healthcare access and strengthening our disaster risk management strategies. Let's remember this isn’t a solitary battle. It's a shared journey toward a sustainable, resilient and healthier future.
Mazen Tawfik, electronics and communications engineering senior, ranked third worldwide in Capsim’s Spring 2023 Foundation Challenge, competing with nearly 1,000 students from different countries, including Australia, Canada, China, England, India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey and the United States.
This year’s biannual international business competition asked students to work through a recession to mirror a market environment of escalating complexity. At the competition, Tawfik’s simulation was running a virtual, multi-million-dollar company head-to-head with peers from 15 countries. The final competition required decision rounds every hour for eight continuous hours. According to Capsim, Tawfi’s success is proof that he “can succeed under pressure and make winning business decisions in the midst of economic uncertainty.”
“I was so thrilled and glad to receive such recognition for my hard work,” Tawfik said. “This challenge will boost my confidence in future work as it makes me believe I have the skills and tenacity to succeed in business under any conditions.”
Tawfk’s first encounter with foundation business simulation was during a class at AUC. “I have always had a competitive spirit, as I believe it drives me to be better,” he said. “Having heard about the challenge from Dr. Irene Shaker, whom I happen to be her teaching assistant in the Introduction to Business course, I immediately joined as I wanted to reach my potential in Capsim and compete with top-notch students all over the world. The most valuable thing I learned from the challenge is the ability to be flexible in an uncertain economy and that consistency is the key to success.”
With an engineering background, Tawfik doesn’t shy away from a business challenge. “Being an engineering student, it was difficult to allocate time to prepare for the competition,” he said. “However, I managed to do so because, in my opinion, business is the key to thriving in every field, and this challenge will add a lot to my mindset. Engineering helped me prevail over other participants, especially when I encountered unexpected results each round, and understand how to use my problem-solving skills to bounce back and compete.
