To honor the legacy of Professor Laila El Baradei ’83, ’88, who passed away in April, the Department of Public Policy and Administration (PPAD) at AUC has developed the Laila El Baradei Thesis Award to recognize an outstanding graduate thesis within the department. At the time of her passing, El Baradei held the positions of professor and chair of PPAD at AUC.

“Dr. Laila El Baradei left behind a lasting impact on her students and colleagues, as well as lasting influence on the local and international public policy sphere. For her, teaching was a calling, not a profession, and publishing was an unwavering commitment to ethical governance and public service” said Noha El-Mikawy ’82, dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

The award will embody El Baradei’s dedication to academic excellence, public service and student mentorship, shaped by generations of public administrators and policy professionals in Egypt and beyond. “The annual award reflects the department’s commitment to fostering high-quality, policy and public administration-related research in honor of El Baradei’s enduring contributions to public service and academia as well as her lasting impact on PPAD and its students,” said PPAD Interim Chair and Associate Dean Shahjahan Bhuiyan.

“Dr. Laila El Baradei left behind a lasting impact on her students and colleagues, as well as lasting influence on the local and international public policy sphere."

The inaugural award will be announced in September 2025 at the PPAD student-alumni networking event, and all subsequent awards will be granted on April 18 each year to keep El Baradei’s memory alive on the anniversary of her passing.

The winning thesis will be chosen from among the Master of Public Administration/Master of Public Policy theses defended and accepted in the previous calendar year (January to December) by a selection committee of at least three full-time PPAD faculty members, appointed by the department chair. The best thesis will be selected based on academic rigor and originality, relevance and contribution to public policy and administration literature, methodological strength and policy relevance and impact.

El Baradei had been an active and valued member of the AUC community for over 30 years, first as a student and later on as faculty. She earned her PhD in public administration from Cairo University in 1988 and was a faculty member there for over 14 years prior to joining AUC in 2006. During her years at AUC, El Baradei served as the first associate dean of the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, later as the acting dean, and then as associate dean for research and graduate studies.

"For her, teaching was a calling not a profession and publishing was an unwavering commitment to ethical governance and public service."

Throughout her career, she had been recognized repeatedly for her teaching excellence and service to the University, earning an Excellence in Academic Service Award from AUC in 2022. She also received numerous awards from local and global organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the American Society for Public Administration, and the Arab Administrative Development Organization. She continues to be awarded posthumously for her work, recently receiving the Pierre DeCelles Award for Best Paper.

El Baradei and her husband, engineer Ibrahim Shoukry, are survived by their three children, Farah Shoukry ’12, ’16, ’25, Mohamed Shoukry ’12, and Nawara Shoukry ’15.

Where you live — your exposome — can make you age several years faster, increasing the risk of cognitive and functional decline. Our environments and surroundings — including pollution, social inequality and weak democratic institutions — significantly accelerate aging.

These findings were part of an new multinational study published in Nature Medicine involving an AUC research team led by Mohamed Salama, professor at the University’s Institute of Global Health and Human Ecology, and Sara Moustafa (MSc ’16, PhD ’24), a postdoctoral fellow in AUC’s aging research group. The results present the first scientific evidence that combined living conditions beyond individual lifestyle affect aging.

Using advanced artificial intelligence and epidemiological modeling, the researchers analyzed environmental, social and political factors and their impact on brain aging, building on the impactful work conducted at AUC focusing on aging and brain health. “Our team at AUC has been successful in contributing to international research in this field, promising to better understand determinants of healthy aging in Egypt and adding to global knowledge,” said Salama.

The study involved 161,981 individuals across 40 countries and was led by a multinational team from Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia and North America. “Diversity in research is not a luxury anymore,” said Salama, who is also a senior fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). “Including countries from Africa and the Middle East is essential to understanding the global risks and challenges for brain health.”

Our Exposome

The research introduces a global exposome framework and shows that multiple exposures can predict bio-behavioral age gaps (BBAGs), a novel measure of accelerated aging. BBAGs are the difference between a person’s actual age and the age predicted by their health, cognition, education, functionality and risk factors like cardiometabolic health or sensory impairments.

"Our team at AUC has been successful in contributing to international research in this field, promising to better understand determinants of healthy aging in Egypt and adding to global knowledge."

Agustin Ibanez, corresponding author of the study and a researcher at the GBHI and Latin American Brain Health Institute, noted that people need to stop thinking of brain health as a purely individual responsibility and consider a more ecological and neurosyndemic framework. “Our biological age reflects the world we live in,” he said. “Exposure to toxic air, political instability and inequality, of course, affect society, but also shapes our health.”

In an age of rising populism, environmental degradation and global displacement, the study emphasizes that understanding how environments affect brain aging is a scientific, political, ethical and health imperative. “This is not a metaphor,” said Hernan Hernandez, first author of the study. “Environmental and political conditions leave measurable fingerprints across 40 countries, revealing a clear gradient of accelerated aging from Africa to Latin America, Asia and Europe

What Affects Brain Health?

Several types of exposures were linked to faster aging: physical factors such as poor air quality; social factors, including migration as well as economic and gender inequality; in addition to sociopolitical factors, such as lack of political representation, limited party freedom, restricted voting rights, unfair elections and weak democracies. Higher BBAGs were also associated with real-world consequences: They predicted future declines in both cognitive abilities and daily functioning. People with larger age gaps were more likely to show significant losses in these areas over time.

"Diversity in research is not a luxury anymore. Including countries from Africa and the Middle East is essential to understanding the global risks and challenges for brain health.”

 “Whether a person ages in a healthy or accelerated way is shaped not only by individual choices or biology, but also by their physical, social and political environments — and these effects vary widely between countries,” said Sandra Beaz, co-corresponding author and Atlantic Fellow of the GBHI at Trinity College.

The study redefines healthy aging as an environmental, social and political phenomenon, highlighting that public health strategies must expand beyond lifestyle prescriptions to address structural inequalities and governance deficits.

“Governments, international organizations and public health leaders must urgently act to reshape environments, from reducing air pollution to strengthening democratic institutions,” said Hernando Santamaria-Garcia, co-first author and a GBHI fellow, adding that these go beyond climate or governance issues to inform urgent health interventions. 

Alumni and faculty from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications (JRMC) have received international recognition for their work this summer.

At the International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference held in Denver, Colorado, Laila Abbas (MA ’24) received the Top Dissertation Award for her master’s thesis, titled, “Emotionally Stimulated Activism on TikTok: The Impact of Exposure to Audiovisual Moral Violations on Collective Action in the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ Movement.”

Her thesis supervisor Professor Shahira Fahmy said, “Laila’s accomplishment is a testament to the outstanding quality of work produced at AUC, as she competed against top PhD dissertations from around the globe and emerged victorious. This showcases our students’ potential to excel well beyond the ordinary.” 

Abbas recently joined a communications PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“This accomplishment is a testament to the outstanding quality of work produced at AUC... This showcases our students’ potential to excel well beyond the ordinary.” 

Menna Elhosary (MA ’24) was also awarded for her work at the ICA, receiving the Top Student Paper Award in the Visual Communication Division — with an acceptance rate of only 31% — for her paper, “Pixels of Prejudices: Decoding Embedded Biases in AI-generated News Imagery and their Implications for Visual Journalism — Toward an Algorithmic Mediated Visual Framing.” Elhosary is currently pursuing a PhD at City St George’s, University of London.

Professor of Practice Kim Fox was also among those recognized this summer, receiving global attention across cultural platforms for an audio piece she co-produced, featuring vocals from Hana Afifi ’14, called Birdland Refracted. The piece was shortlisted for the Audio Flux Circuit 05 competition and was chosen as one of only four Circuit Selects, premiering as part of the Sound Scene Festival at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. 

Ahead of that debut, Birdland Refracted aired on LRT Radijas, the main public radio network in Lithuania, introducing the work to a European audience. The piece also drew attention from the media industry, earning a mention in Nieman Lab, and it was featured in the Happy Hour/Happy Ears 05 Finalist Listening Party.

In the thick of the summer and with a new academic year on the horizon, AUC is excited to discover how its creative faculty, alumni and students will continue to excel in their fields.