The MIT Arab Students' Organization held its sixth annual Science and Technology Awards Banquet on Saturday, April 11, this year honoring Mostafa El-Sayed, Regents Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology.
"The MIT Arab Students' Organization Science and Technology Awards Banquet aims to recognize exceptional Arabs and Arab-Americans who have made noteworthy contribution to the fields of science and technology," said Hussam Busfar, president of the MIT Arab Students' Organization. "These individuals, with their exceptional talent and contributions, make us proud and help to change some of the negative images associated with Arabs in recent years."
In addition to the Lifetime Achievement Award presented to El-Sayed, the event included the presentation of a Young Professional Award to Sami Shalabi, a member of the technical staff at Google; a graduate student award to Haitham Ahmed, an MPH candidate at the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and an MD candidate at Dartmouth Medical School; and an undergraduate student award to Mohamed Zaghoo, an undergraduate majoring in physics at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The awards banquet links different generations of Arab and Arab-American science and technology specialists and presents a valuable opportunity for Arab and Arab-American students to interact with accomplished professionals from the community.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 29, 2009 (download PDF).
