
KAUST's Osman Bakr,
Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, was elected
as one of the first 50 members of the Arab-German Young Academy of
Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) this June.
The first 50 AGYA members were selected after two calls
for membership in 2013 and 2014. From these calls, the organization
chose 25 Arab and 25 German outstanding researchers to represent their
community. The selected members came from universities and research
institutions across the Middle East including Egypt, Jordan, Oman and
Saudi Arabia as well as Germany.
To celebrate the announcement, Bakr and his fellow
members gathered for the opening conference in Germany at the
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) in Berlin
to discuss topics around education, energy, water and environment,
cultural heritage, innovation and transformation processes. They also
attended AGYA's opening ceremony on June 21.
AGYA began in 2013 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of
Sciences and Humanities in Germany and the Arabian Gulf University in
Bahrain as the first bilateral young academy in the world. Its goal is
to promote the cooperation between Arab and German researchers who are
in the first 10 years of their career following their Ph.D.
They also support interdisciplinary projects across
various fields of research, science policy and education, and see their
members as ambassadors of science and culture.