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| AUK interns Yousef Abdul-Husain (left) and Helene Georges El Neaman (right) with Lesley Wellman (center), Hood Foundation Curator of Education |
"In addition, interns have specific projects that they work on while they are here," notes Lesley Wellman, Hood Foundation Curator of Education. "These projects are designed to capitalize on students' expertise and interests and to help the museum accomplish its mission as a teaching museum." This year's projects focused on marketing and education resource development. Wellman says, "[Interns] Helene El Neaman and Yousef Abdul-Husain did an excellent job designing posters to help promote our upcoming exhibitions and researching materials for teacher resources related to those same shows."
While Abdul-Husain and El Neaman were hard at work at the Hood, the museum announced that Lesley Wellman was named the 2012 National Museum Art Educator of the Year by the National Art Education Association.
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| Charles Dameron '11 |
When Dartmouth-AUK intern Charles Dameron was in Kuwait in 2009, his assignments included research and teaching in Professor Christopher Ohan's Oral History course and working with student journalists at The Voice of AUK. Both experiences proved valuable in the course of writing his senior thesis at Dartmouth, for which he was recently awarded the prestigious Chase Peace Prize. Dameron's thesis focused on the effectiveness of state-sponsored media.
The Chase Peace Prize is awarded annually by Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding. Dameron found that the more objective the broadcast, the more audiences wanted to listen. "And listenership translates to impact," Dameron said in a public forum at Dartmouth in February 2012.
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By Beth Hindmarsh
What do computer games and the study of bee swarms have to do with cancer research? They are both pieces of the human disease jigsaw that, while seemingly unrelated, might yield powerful new tools of diagnosis and treatment. What they share is high-powered computing. Without it, computer games could not do the amazing things they do, solving how swarms of bees (or colonies of ants, schools of fish, or flocks of birds) seem to work as one entity would be impossible, and applying that knowledge to research into human disease processes, particularly cancer, would be unlikely to yield answers.
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| Mohammad El Abd and Jason H. Moore |
How high-powered computing might be applied to research in human disease was examined this summer by Mohammed El Abd, an assistant professor of computer engineering and expert in particle swarm optimization (PSO) at the American University of Kuwait, and Jason Moore, director of the Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (iQBS) at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. El Abd is the fourth Faculty Fellow to study with a Dartmouth colleague.
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Five students from the American University of Kuwait (AUK) will be at Dartmouth in summer 2012 to participate in internships and attend an intensive program designed to train computer science majors in electronic infrastructure security.
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| AUK students (left to right) Helene Georges El Neaman, Kevork Awakimian, Eman Karam, Yousef Abdul-Husain, and Wadhah Al-Dalama will intern at Dartmouth this summer. |
Yousef Abdul-Husain and Helene Georges El Neaman will divide their time at Dartmouth between internships at the Hood Museum of Art and the Office of Public Affairs, while Kevork Awakimian will work with programs in the Rassias Center for World Languages. Wadhah Al-Dalama and Eman Karam will attend the Secure Information Systems and Mentoring Program (SISMAT) offered through Dartmouth's Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS).
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| Jacqueline Waugh '13 |
AUK welcomed Dartmouth intern Jacqueline Waugh '13 this spring. Waugh, who will be at AUK until the end of May 2012, will be working in the Center for Gulf Studies, Intensive English program, and with the EDUC program.
Waugh, from central New York State, is in her third year at Dartmouth studying international relations and anthropology, focusing on the Middle East. She is involved in a number of activities on campus, including ballroom and salsa dancing, and is a sister at Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority.
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| Mohammad El Abd |
Mohammad El Abd, an assistant professor of Computer Engineering at the American University of Kuwait (AUK), will be a visiting scholar at the Dartmouth Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (iQBS) in June and July 2012. El Abd's research is in the field of particle swarm optimization (PSO), which employs mathematical algorithms, coupled with innovative computer search tools, to predict the behavior of individuals in large groups. El Abd comes to Dartmouth through the Dartmouth College–American University of Kuwait Project, a collaboration begun in 2003 to provide assistance to the founding and ongoing development of Kuwait's first private liberal arts university.
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| Travis Cramer '12 interned at AUK in 2011. |
In 2004, the American University of Kuwait accepted a silver plate from Dartmouth College. Reminiscent of Dartmouth's own Wentworth Bowl, which the Royal Governor of New Hampshire presented to the College in 1771, the symbolic plate not only served as an expression of confidence in the American University of Kuwait's continuity but also marked the beginning of a partnership between two liberal arts colleges.
Sheikha Dana Nasser Al-Sabah, founder of the AUK, which is the first private liberal arts university on the Arabian Peninsula, modeled the AUK after its role model and sister school. In an effort to assist the AUK's initial growth and development, the College decided to create the AUK Funded Internship Project.
The relationship began in the spring of 2004, when Dartmouth selected its first pair of students to travel Kuwait City. As paid interns, the students helped AUK with administrative duties. In the summer of 2007, Dartmouth College began to host Kuwaiti students. By 2011, the AUK had welcomed 23 Dartmouth students, while Dartmouth received 19 AUK students in Hanover.
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| AUK's Sara Soliman '13 (left) and Dartmouth's Shloka Kini '13 (right) performed at the AUK-Dartmouth music recital, held each year in Kuwait City. |
The Music Program of the American University of Kuwait (AUK), in collaboration with Dartmouth College, presented a stellar music recital on November 14 in the AUK Auditorium Liberal Arts Building, Salmiya Campus. Before a packed house of over 300, advanced student musicians from both distinguished institutions, accompanied by faculty, performed an exciting repertoire of vocal and instrumental solo and chamber works, demonstrating the continued success of AUK's cultural collaboration with Dartmouth.
The concert, which was the fourth AUK-Dartmouth recital, featured a variety of works, including music by Chopin, Haydn, Fauré, Mozart, and Verdi. Music professionals Drs. Elena Tsenkova (piano) and Feruza Kadirova (violin), and Professors Anna Karadimitrova (voice), Agnieszka Fajga (cello), and Dagmara Galas (flute), showcased their own and their students' talents. Student Shloka Kini, a Dartmouth intern at AUK, played guitar, accompanied AUK student Sara Suliman (flute) on two pieces. Ms. Kini went on to perform a Kuhlau solo piano sonatina and then joined the full ensemble as a singer in the finale Schubert Serenade.
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AUK welcomed its 23rd Dartmouth intern since 2005, Shloka Ranjan Kini, a Dartmouth third-year student from the Chicago suburb of Schererville, Indiana. Kini will be working in the Information Technology Office, the Writing Center, and with computer science faculty. She also will be serving as a teaching assistant in guitar classes at AUK.
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| Shloka Ranjan Kini |
At Dartmouth, Kini is a computer science major with plans to pursue premedical studies. She has participated in several Rockefeller Center programs, including the First-Year Fellows program, during which she interned in Washington, D.C., for a summer, as well as the Management Leadership Development program.
Kini also is very involved in Dartmouth′s student-run radio stations, WDCR and WFRD, and has her own weekly radio show, which currently features theme-driven oldies, country, and Bollywood songs.
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| L-R: Sara Soliman, Hala Botros, and Nada Bedir (photo by Joe Mehling '69) |
Each summer, AUK selects a promising faculty member for its AUK–Dartmouth Fellowship. This year, Assistant Professor of Computer and Electrical Engineering Mohamad Awad is at Thayer School of Engineering, where he′s working with Dartmouth′s George Cybenko, the Dorothy and Walter Gramm Professor of Engineering, on behavioral modeling of telecommunications customers. Outside the lab, Awad has canoed on the Connecticut River and gone horseback riding at Morton Farm with his family. "George and his research group are world-leading experts in the field of behavioral modeling," says Awad. "He is a man of great humanity, and working with him is having a positive impact on every aspect of my research."
Dale F. Eickelman, the Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College, has received the 2011 Distinguished Scholar Award from the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). The award recognizes scholars “whose teaching and contributions to the literature and the profession have substantially advanced the field,” according to Emilio Spadola, assistant professor of anthropology at Colgate University and chair of the AAA Middle East Awards Committee. Citing Eickelman’s “remarkable and productive career,” members of the award committee praised his contributions to scholarship on the Middle East, with particular emphasis on his commitment to uniting colleagues across disciplines. He was also recognized “for working to mentor both graduate and undergraduate students.”
Travis Michael Cramer, hailing from Portland, Oregon, is a member of the class of 2012 at Dartmouth College. He is an Anthropology major and is interested in education management. In the past he has served as an executive of several extracurricular clubs, worked as a behavioral neuroscience research assistant, and participated in choir, musical theatre, and track and cross country running. On campus he is involved in community service activities such as tutoring local elementary and middle school students and helping foreign students learn English. He is also involved in a campus Christian group and is the Service and Philanthropy Chair of Zeta Psi Fraternity. Travis is looking forward to learning about the Middle East and meeting and working with the students, faculty, and staff of AUK. Travis will be working in the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, the Writing Center, and with the Student Success Center. Travis will be at AUK until the end of May 2011. Travis is the thirteenth intern since 2005 to join AUK from Dartmouth College.
It was 9:15 a.m. in Hanover and 4:15 p.m. in Kuwait City on October 21, 2010, when two groups of young women, one at the American University of Kuwait (AUK) and one at Dartmouth, talked about the reasons they chose to major in computer science. Facilitated by the Dartmouth College-American University of Kuwait Project; the Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS); and the Women in Science Project, the conversation took place in real time using videoconferencing technology in the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL), and the Information Technology Department and the Library at American University of Kuwait (AUK).
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| Women in Science Project participants video conference with women computer science majors from the American University of Kuwait (photo by Joseph Mehling ’69) |
The videoconference highlighted a growing list of activities that take place as part of Dartmouth’s relationship with AUK, now in its seventh year. One aspect of that relationship, the AUK Faculty Fellows Program, brings AUK scholars to Dartmouth to work with counterparts in Hanover. AUK Assistant Professor of Computer Science Amir Zeid visited Dartmouth in summer 2010 to work with George Cybenko, the Dorothy and Walter Gramm Professor of Engineering. ...
Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim was preparing for a speech he was to give later that day when he met with AUK’s newly appointed president Winfred “Win” Thompson on July 29. The two presidents compared notes on the challenges—and the rewards—of leading university communities and talked about the global nature of higher education in the 21st century.
