Visiting UAE professors describe “life-changing” experiences at MIT
They came to MIT on different schedules, from different academic backgrounds, with different research and educational goals. But the four junior faculty members from a growing technology university in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) all described their time at MIT in much the same way: a transformational opportunity for themselves and, ultimately, for their students as well. “I would categorize it as a life-changing experience,” says Aamena Alshamsi, assistant professor of computing and information science at the UAE’s Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. While she has collaborated with MIT colleagues before, it’s typically been from half a world away. “The face-to-face interaction is very effective in research,” says Alshamsi, who, like her colleagues, spent her time in Cambridge working one-to-one with an MIT researcher on a joint research project. “Sometimes you just need to be in the same place.” Masdar Institute is a research-focused graduate university in Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s...