With the prestigious 2024 Laidlaw Foundation Scholarship, Jannah Elgamal, (GU-Q’27), seized the opportunity to drive meaningful change through her research on how the Syrian war shaped the political attitudes of Syrian youth, particularly those displaced to Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the post-Arab Spring era. “If we want to reintegrate these people…in the rebuilding of the country, we need to assure them that there will be security and justice,” she concluded. Jannah is one of many GU-Q students who, with the help of faculty mentorship, have turned research opportunities into meaningful research contributions.

As part of her Certificate in Media and Politics, Irene Promodh, (GU-Q’21), conducted an ethnographic study on FM radio’s role in Qatar’s South Asian community, which was published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, a rare achievement for an undergraduate. Her exceptional scholarship earned her admission to the Ph.D. program in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Michigan. Irene is not alone; several other students have published articles shortly after graduation, such as Aisha Al-Kuwari, (GU-Q’22), who co-published with Dr. Uday Chandra in Journal of Arabian Studies (2024), and Pragyan Acharya (GU-Q’24), who co-published with Dr. Rogaia Abusharf in NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art (2023).

Throughout his undergraduate years at GU-Q, Kartikeya Uniyal, (GU-Q’23), pursued his passion for educating underprivileged youth. In his first year, he was selected for the Clinton Global Initiative University social incubation program, leading him to launch Access Labs, an ed-tech platform for digital learning. His project received support and collaboration from the Peace Innovation Lab at Stanford University, Georgetown’s Penner Family Experiences Fund, and the SIPS Summer Scholars Program. In his third year, Kartikeya was awarded a Georgetown University Education and Social Justice Summer Research Fellowship. After earning a Master’s in Learning, Design, and Technology at GU, Kartikeya founded Systems for Advanced Global Education in Uganda, a social enterprise promoting education as a public good in the AI era.

Syed Taha Kaleem, (GU-Q’22), and Elene Chkhaidze (GU-Q’24), studied peacebuilding in Kashmir and Cyprus as International Reporting Fellows through a partnership between Georgetown’s Berkley Center and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Elene later earned the Raines Fellowship the following year, joining dozens of GU-Q students who have secured competitive research funds under GU-Q faculty mentorship. Fellow Raines scholar Asma Shakeel (GU-Q’24), who studied India’s migrant workers and colonial archives went on to win the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship her senior year on the basis of her research. Now at Oxford University for a Master’s in Global and Imperial History, she says: “What we need is for students and for young people to believe that their questions matter and their curiosity is the way forward.”