Since the establishment of the McGill-United Arab Emirates Fellowships in Science and Engineering in 2015, McGill has welcomed six outstanding fellows from the UAE to our campuses. The fellowships are among the most generous at McGill.
Created through a landmark gift from the Crown Prince Court of the United Arab Emirates, the fellowships have supported students from the United Arab Emirates pursuing graduate studies in science or engineering at McGill.
Students like Shaima Demas, who is starting her PhD in neuroscience this fall and is “passionate about multidisciplinary research … and looking forward to learning and contributing to research in neuroscience at McGill.” On the extracurricular side, she’s interested in getting involved with the BrainReach community outreach program, where she’s excited to teach “neuroscience in a fun and creative way.”
Expanded support and new opportunities
Now the McGill-United Arab Emirates partnership will include more faculties and units.
A renewed commitment from the Crown will also support postdoctoral STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) studies, as well as provide undergraduate research opportunities.
The McGill-UAE Graduate Studies Fellowships will fund up to 10 master’s and PhD students who demonstrate excellence in their field of study in the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Engineering (including the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture and the School of Urban Planning), the Department of Economics in the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Medicine or the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (with preference given to those studying food security). The goal of this program extension is to foster innovation and support exceptional students. These fellowships will include an experiential learning award to participate in a prestigious internship in Canada or abroad.
The expanded gift will also establish nine awards in the Summer Undergraduate Research in Engineering program (SURE), as well as at least nine Undergraduate Research Traineeships (UGRT) awards in the Faculty of Science that will last up to 10 weeks for UAE students seeking research experience during their undergraduate studies.
“Undergraduate research is a very important priority of the Faculty, and these fellowships will further broaden the cohort of students who are able to take up research positions,” says Professor David A. Stephens, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Science.
‘Living my best life in Montreal’
Omar Alaryani is a McGill-UAE Fellow completing his Master of Science in Theoretical Physics and working with Professor Robert Brandenberger. “Not only has the Fellowship granted me a fulfilling academic opportunity, but I have been able to live my best life in Montreal,” he says.
“Weekday mornings consist of attending lectures, class assignments and working towards a research project, either at my office in the Ernest Rutherford Physics Building or one of the city’s many cafés. This year I joined McGill’s karate dojo, a mental and physical experience where I – as our motto goes – develop and maintain my body, expand my mind and polish my spirit.”
This summer he’s using the experiential activity fund to attend a week-long theoretical physics conference in Warsaw, work on his thesis at ETH Zürich and enroll in cosmology summer school in São Paulo.
The new components of the McGill-UAE partnership launch in the 2020-2021 school year.