Professor Abla Mehio Sibai

Professor Abla Mehio Sibai, عبلة محيو السباعي, is a world-renowned epidemiologist and self-described “public health activist” who researches healthy ageing and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in older populations. Her work is particularly focused on ageing in low- and middle-income countries and those that have experienced wars and socio-political unrest. A professor and chair of Epidemiology and Population Health at the American University of Beirut (AUB), her mission is “to inspire a paradigm shift in the way we relate and act towards age and ageing”.

Sibai earned a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 1977. The Lebanese civil war and motherhood put her scientific career on hold temporarily, but her later research was inspired in part by witnessing the impact of violence and conflict on vulnerable older people.

After almost a decade of full-time parenting, Sibai returned to AUB to complete a master’s degree in epidemiology in 1986. She received her PhD in epidemiology eleven years later from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Over the course of her long career, Sibai has published more than 200 scientific papers and around 100 book chapters, reports and policy briefs – all aiming to identify and address the health, social, political and economic challenges brought about by population ageing. These include the growing burden of chronic diseases and the financial cost of care for elderly people, particularly in countries like Lebanon that are not wealthy and have been affected by conflict. A central preoccupation of Sibai’s work has been the impact of NCDs such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes among older adults in underprivileged communities, including within refugee settlements.

Sibai has led or co-led many major research projects on the impact of disease, including Lebanon’s first nationwide survey on NCDs for the World Health Organization (WHO). This went on to inform public health policy in her home country and globally. In 2008, she co-founded the Center for Studies on Aging in Lebanon, a “hub for research, education, policy formulation and training on ageing in Lebanon and the Arab region”, where she is now president.

Sibai’s advocates for “a human-centred approach to science”, and this goes hand-in-hand with her belief that all elderly people have the right to enjoy a fulfilling, meaningful life. In 2010, she co-founded the ‘University for Seniors’ (UfS) lifelong learning programme at AUB,  which offers educational “opportunities to remain intellectually energised, physically active and socially connected” for older adults. The internationally acclaimed programme has been recognised as helping to delay cognitive decline.

More recently, Sibai led the development of Lebanon’s National Strategy for Older Persons (2020-2030), the country’s plan for “ensuring the health-related, social and economic rights of older people”. A member of the WHO’s Science Council since 2021, she is currently Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB.

Sibai was awarded the Dr AT Shousha Foundation Prize in 2014 for her contributions to public health, and the State of Kuwait Prize for the Control of Cancer, Cardiovascular Diseases and Diabetes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region in 2019. In 2020, she won the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award “for her pioneering research and advocacy”. She said that the recognition was deserved by anyone who works “to make the world a better place for older people, especially those who are too often marginalised and ‘left behind’”.

Further Reading

• Abla Mehio Sibai, Wikipedia
• Faculty Member Profile: Abla Sibai, Dean and Professor, American University of Beirut 
• Abla Mehio Sibai: I hope to inspire a paradigm shift in the way we relate and act towards age and ageing, Unesco, 14 January 2021

Written by Moya Crockett, with thanks to Stylist for their support.

Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (in a Big Way), Roma Agrawal

Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple.

In Nuts and Bolts, award-winning Shard engineer and broadcaster Roma Agrawal deconstructs our most complex feats of engineering into seven fundamental inventions: the nail, spring, wheel, lens, magnet, string and pump.

Each of these objects is itself a wonder of design, the result of many iterations and refinements. Together, they have enabled humanity to see the invisible, build the spectacular, communicate across vast distances, and even escape our planet.
Tracing the surprising journeys of each invention through the millennia, Roma reveals how handmade Roman nails led to modern skyscrapers, how the potter’s wheel enabled space exploration, and how humble lenses helped her conceive a child against the odds.

She invites us to marvel at these small but perfectly formed inventions, sharing the stories of the remarkable, and often unknown, scientists and engineers who made them possible. The nuts and bolts that make up our world may be tiny, and are often hidden, but they’ve changed our lives in dramatic ways.

Order the book on Bookshop.org.uk.

Hear Roma Agrawal talk about her book on BBC Sounds.

Read more about the book in The Guardian.

About the author

Roma Agrawal MBE FICE HonFREng, is an Indian-British-American chartered structural engineer based in London who attributes her enthusiasm for engineering to a love of making (and breaking) things as a child.

She has worked on several major engineering projects, including The Shard, and says her entry into engineering started with a summer placement at Oxford University’s Department of Physics, where she worked alongside engineers designing particle detectors for CERN.

In 2005, Agrawal joined WSP for a graduate programme, eventually becoming a chartered engineer with The Institution of Structural Engineers in 2011. She spent six years working on the tallest building in Western Europe (The Shard), designing the foundations and the iconic spire – something she describes as a career highlight: “I think projects like that only come once or twice in your career, so I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on this.” The 1,016-ft (310 m) tall structure required a top-down construction methodology, which had never been done before on a building of this scale, requiring the spire to be of modular construction – it had to be built and tested off-site, enabling quick and safe assembly at its current height in central London.

Agrawal is also an author and a diversity campaigner who champions women in engineering. Following her years working on The Shard, Agrawal found herself presenting her work to children at schools and students at universities, igniting a personal passion for raising awareness of engineering. She has since presented to over 15,000 people worldwide.

You can follow Roma Agrawal’s work here:

Twitter: @RomaTheEngineer
Instagram: @romatheengineer
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/roma-agrawal-mbe-56ab4315
YouTube: Roma Agrawal – YouTube
Website: romatheengineer.com

With thanks to Synergy for their support.

Professor Rajeshwari Chatterjee

Professor Rajeshwari Chatterjee was an Indian scientist, educator and the first female engineer from the state of Karnataka. A professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, she was among the first Indian scientists to research microwave engineering, focusing mostly on passive microwave devices.

Chatterjee was born on 24 January 1922 in Karnataka, southwest India. Her grandmother was a university graduate and social activist who advocated for women’s education, and encouraged the young Chatterjee to pursue her studies. After a degree in mathematics from Central College of Bangalore, Chatterjee set out to join the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as a research scholar in 1943.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was no easy task. Senior figures at the institute were well-known for their aversion to female students and Chatterjee was initially rejected – supposedly due to her lack of a physics degree, possibly because of her gender. Undeterred, she eventually persuaded IISc to accept her as a research student in communication engineering. She spent several years in the lab at the IISc, working on electronics research and specialising in ultra-high frequency measurements.

When World War Two came to an end, with India on the cusp of independence, Chatterjee got the chance to take her career to the next level. The government in Delhi was offering scholarships for bright Indian students to study abroad and she seized the opportunity, moving to the US to study at the University of Michigan in 1947.

After obtaining a master’s degree in electrical engineering in the US, Chatterjee completed her PhD at the University of Michigan in 1953, aged 31. Her supervisor was Professor William Gould Dow, a pioneer in electrical engineering who had helped develop life-saving radar jamming technology during the war.

A return to India, and to the IISc, followed. Chatterjee became a faculty member at the institute’s Department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE), making her its first female engineer. In later life, she became the department chairperson.

In the early 1950s, Chatterjee started building India’s first microwave engineering research lab with her husband, her fellow scientist and colleague Sisir Kumar Chatterjee. Microwave research was still in its infancy, and Chatterjee focused mostly on guided and radiated wave devices. Together, the Chatterjees developed courses in microwave technology and satellite communication, and were the first to teach this subject in India in the 1960s. Her research helped shape developments in aircraft and spacecraft antennae and is still considered relevant today, particularly in the fields of defence and radar technology.

Chatterjee retired from the IISc in 1982. Over a career spanning more than 30 years, she wrote over 100 research papers and seven books, including Elements of Microwave Engineering and her autobiography A Thousand Streams. She died on 3 September 2010, aged 88.

Her awards included the J.C. Bose Memorial prize for the best research paper from the Institution of Engineers, India, as well as the Ramlal Wadhwa Award for the best research and teaching work from the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, India.

Further Reading

• Rajeshwari Chatterjee, Wikipedia
• Rajeshwari Chatterjee, Google Arts & Culture 
• Remembering Rajeswari Chatterjee, IISc’s First Woman Engineer, Sridevi Venkatesan and Subhayan Sahu, Connect, 22 May 2017
• Lucky to be where I am, Rajeshwari Chatterjee (by K Shashikala), Lilavati’s Daughters, 31 October 2008

Written by Moya Crockett, with thanks to Stylist for their support.

Dr Tasneem Zehra Husain

Dr Tasneem Zehra Husain is a theoretical physicist, science writer, educator and the first Pakistani woman to earn a PhD in string theory. She is a staunch advocate for science and technology in Pakistan, and works to make physics accessible to general audiences.

Husain studied mathematics and physics at Kinnaird College in her home city of Lahore, undertaking her master’s degree in physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. She relocated to Sweden for a doctorate in theoretical physics at Stockholm University, obtaining her PhD in string theory in 2003 – the first Pakistani woman ever to do so.

After completing her PhD, Husain moved to Harvard University in the US for a two-year postdoctoral research position. During that time, she helped establish a School of Science and Engineering at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, taking up a faculty position there after leaving Harvard. She has also taught mathematics and physics at her alma mater, Kinnaird College.

From the moment she first heard of string theory, Husain has said she was “fascinated by the idea that all the rich diversity of matter and forces in our universe could be manifested by the flutters and oscillations of infinitesimal strings”. Her research has focused on better understanding 11-dimensional space-time and M-Theory. She also works to make theoretical physics more accessible – a mission she sees as particularly important at a time when the relationship between scientists and the public can be distrustful.

Although she is now based in the US, Husain still works to support science and STEM education in Pakistan. She designed Pakistan’s logo for the World Year of Physics (WYP) in 2005, helped train Pakistan’s physics team for an International Physics Olympiad and represented Pakistan at the Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany.

Beyond research, her work has focused on science writing and public speaking. Husain has said that her teachers’ “dry” approach to physics in school made it harder for her to pursue a scientific career. As a result, she strives to demystify theoretical physics for people who aren’t scientists and inspire young people to pursue scientific education and careers. She gives regular talks on string theory and physics for mainstream audiences, delivers presentations to high school and college students, and runs workshops for science teachers and government officials. She has also conducted writing workshops for scientists to help them communicate their ideas, including a series at CERN.

In 2014, Husain published her first novel, Only the Longest Threads, about pivotal historical moments when new physics theories shaped people’s understanding of the universe. She has said she hopes the book will illuminate what can seem like the “abstract” work” of theoretical physicists “to people who lack a mathematical background but are genuinely curious”.

You can follow her work here:

Twitter: @tasneemzhusain
Website: tasneemzehrahusain.com

Further Reading

• Tasneem Zehra Husain, Wikipedia
• Tasneem Zehra Husain, The Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth
• Q&A with Tasneem Zehra Husain, Paul Dry Books
• Sky is limit for girls in science, says Pakistan’s first woman string theorist, Kiran Butt, AA, 11 February 2022
• Inside the life of Pakistan’s first female string theorist, Mahrukh Sarwar, Dawn, 2 December 2016

Written by Moya Crockett, with thanks to Stylist for their support.

Can You Get Rainbows in Space? A Colourful Compendium of Space and Science, Sheila Kanani and Liz Kay

Can you get rainbows in space? Good question! Dr Sheila Kanani explores this and many more questions in this incredible collection of scientific facts about colour. Beautifully and brightly coloured throughout by illustrator Liz Kay, this irresistible book is a cornucopia of fascinating information. Why is blood red but your veins look blue? Why are carrots orange? Why is the world ‘going green’? Is the sky really blue? What is ultraviolet light? There’s so much to discover!

Starting with the most important thing – light – Sheila Kanani explores what light actually is and how it is perceived by the human eye. Dancing through the colours of the rainbow (and beyond, through black, white, fluorescence, infrared and ultraviolet), each section explains how we see that particular colour and explores nature linked to it, including how some animals can see in the dark. Best of all, you’ll learn exactly how to make a rainbow – in space!

Designed to get young scientists excited about outer space as well as the Earth they live on, this vibrant book packed with exquisite illustrations will draw in readers from as young as 7, but adults alike are sure to find themselves wowed by some fascinating facts.

Did you know overripe bananas glow indigo under ultraviolet light? Did you know hippos have red sweat? Did you know when you mix green and red light they make yellow light? Let’s find out!

Order the book on Bookshop.org.uk.

About the author

Dr Sheila Kanani MBE is a British astronomer and is the Education, Outreach and Diversity Officer at the Royal Astronomical Society and is dedicated to improving the representation of girls and women in physics. 

In 2014 she won the Inspiring Women in Technology award, and also won the Europlanet Prize for Public Engagement with Planetary Science in 2020. She continues to identify new ways to make astronomy and physics accessible to underrepresented communities. She has written a series of books about exceptional female leaders as part of The Extraordinary Life Of… series, including Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart and Michelle Obama. She also dives further into space exploration with her book How to be an Astronaut and Other Space Jobs, with her latest release Can You Get Jellyfish in Space? coming in 2024.

Dr Kanani was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year’s Honours List for services to astronomy and to diversity in physics.

You can follow Sheila Kanani’s work here:

Twitter: @saturnsheila
LinkedIn: Dr Sheila Kanani MBE
Wikipedia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Kanani

About the illustrator

Liz Kay is a Yorkshire based illustrator who has worked on a variety of commissions across illustrated maps, hand lettering & calligraphy, greetings cards, infographics, children’s books, newspapers & magazines, animation, murals, personalised illustrations & wedding stationery. 

Liz has provided illustrations for Time Out, Radio Times, Walker Books, Pearson Education, Conde Naste, Oxford University Press, Quality Chartered Institute and Lonely Planet amongst others.

You can follow Liz Kay’s work here:

Twitter: @LizKayillo
Website: lizkay.co.uk

With thanks to Synergy for their support.