Women & Physics in the Arab World – lecture, Stanford, Fri 3/20

Professor Karimat El-Sayed, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, Winner of the UNESCO/L’Oreal Prize

Friday, March 20, 2009, 3:00-4:00pm, Stanford University, Oak Room West, Tresidder Union. Free and open to all.

Prof. Karimat El-Sayed is from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, and is the winner of the UNESCO/L’Oreal prize and a prominent Egyptian crystallographer. Prof. El-Sayed’s seminar will discuss the history of women physicists in Egypt and the Arab world and how their numbers have been increasing over the years. Egypt has played a large role in educating schoolchildren and university students in many Arab countries, but Arab women living in the countries located east of Egypt still have many difficulties facing them, needing to overcome many technical, academic, and social problems. There were many problems in the early days of education in Egypt, but the women of Egypt worked hard to gain the same rights as men and were able to pave the way for all Arab women. This talk will also describe the impact of the regional conference on Women in Physics in Africa and the Middle East, which was held in Cairo in 2007. This seminar is co-sponsored by SLAC, the Physics Department, and the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

More info at Clayman Institute for Gender Research: Events.