Gihan Kamel

“My main areas of focus are biomedicine and bioarcheology. In collaboration with researchers from Jordan, we have conducted studies that have proved the utility of infrared microspectroscopy in generating pathophysiological knowledge.”

“We are also evolving the model of “science for peace”. For example, with Africa being the only continent in the world without a light synchrotron, we are exploiting the connection points between the Middle East and the continent”

“We don’t think of our villages or our nationality. We don’t have labels in there. Inside SESAME we are SESAME staff. I have attended SESAME users’ meetings for 12 years. In the beginning I saw people clustering in groups. If you saw the last users’ meeting last year, people were really mingling together and they were chatting and sitting together to discuss scientific projects even if their governments are in a really, really bad diplomatic situation.’”

“I'm one of these people and there is another beamline scientist (who) was also in Italy and he also joined two years ago. Another beamline scientist was also in Switzerland and he came back to SESAME and it’s happening.’”

“SESAME is considered as a gate for all the female scientists in the Middle East and neighbouring regions, especially to those who are not able to travel abroad, facilitating their struggles and helping them in having an advanced scientific career.”

“We receive a good number of proposals for experiments (from women) and also they apply for training or short fellowships but so far it’s difficult maybe for many women scientists in the region to apply for a position at SESAME.”

“‘Yes. The facility declares the gender balance concept when they open the call for proposals or fellowships for training or users’ meetings or all the events related to SESAME. Women are strongly encouraged to apply.”

“We are scientists but we are still humans and we cannot close our eyes or ears to what’s happening around us but somehow we just decided to put these things aside and try to make something positive out of all this negativity.’”

“Yes, because we always say that SESAME was modelled on CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) (which succeeds) despite the conflicts in the past between the European countries. We take it as a role model. The war in Europe is over, but for us it’s not, so we have lots of challenges to keep going this way. We have to keep in mind all the struggling in our region parallel to constructing a facility like this.”

“We are starting with scientists but I think in our way we are doing something remarkable. I think we are somehow contributing to the decision-making in our region for our countries, just by keeping everything aside and focusing on one issue, that’s science. We do not fight when we deal with science. We only focus on physics, chemistry and biology and there is no space for other conflicts.’”

“Exactly. It’s obvious that a facility like a synchrotron light source takes millions of dollars and also huge expertise and manpower, and it’s also clear that no single country in the Middle East or any developing country is able to have its own synchrotron facility like we see in Europe or the US. SESAME is the only synchrotron facility where all these members are contributing to have it operational.”

“Basically, it is considered something like a super-microscope. The basic principle of the synchrotron is to accelerate electrons up to high energy, then we collect a part of the electromagnetic radiation (as) infrared and X-rays. You can perform different experiments or applications that almost are impossible to perform by conventional X-ray or infrared sources because the synchrotron radiation has unique properties – essentially its brightness and resolution. So we can see with the synchrotron what we can never see with any conventional source.”

“We are scientists but we are still humans and we cannot close our eyes or ears to what’s happening around us.”