Name: Shorouk Badir
Hometown: Bethlehem, Palestine
Year: 2016
Major: Chemistry & Biology
(Image credit: newsstoryleadership.org)
Shorouk Badir has done her best to keep Bryn Mawr a safe, loving, and educational place for years. Not only has she served as hall advisor for Merion’s third floor in 2014-15, but she has also inspired much international conversation among students both like and unlike her.
She grew up in Bethlehem, West Bank Palestine, and is the daughter of a hard-working taxi driver and his wife. Though raised secular, she has always wanted to know more about Islam. This curiosity inspired her recent influential Prezi on the The Interpretations of Jihad and Hirabah in Islam. In her last year of high school, she challenged social and physical boundaries forced upon her when she attended the American International School in Israel and was the only Palestinian in a school for Israelis. She has been very interested in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and helped spread awareness on campus through the creation of the Bryn Mawr Voices for Palestine Club. Although her secular family was extremely poor, she secured a scholarship award from the Hope Fund for Palestine’s most outstanding scholars, and went on to study at Bryn Mawr College.
She’s has had a major interest in science and chemistry for the longest time and her dream is to earn a PhD in Chemistry. In fact, she has worked under the guidance of Dr. William P. Malachowski in the Synthesis of Inhibitor Molecules of Indoleamine 2, 3-Dioxygenase (IDO) project in the American Chemical Society, collaborating with president of the Bryn Mawr Japanese Student Association Eri Arai (’16) in the summers of 2014 and 2015. She was also a part of the Division of Organic Chemistry 44th National Organic Symposium Poster Session at the University of Maryland.
At school, she has been a leader in the Model United Nations Program and a member of the Conflict-Resolution Committee. She was also an NSL (New Story Leadership) intern in 2013 in order to provide teachers and students with the latest computer technology and internet teaching facilities for the purpose of joining a global conversation with youth around the globe. She meant to challenge the impact of the occupation using technology to help end the isolation of the Palestinian youth. To spread her message, she has spoken both at the Ritz Carlton and the Congressional Forum of 2013 and both speeches are now on Youtube. Because of this work, she was featured on the Washington Report On Middle Eastern Affairs online magazine in its September 2013 issue.
She was also part of the Muslim students association in 2013 as well as the CPPF, or the Canadian Palestinian Professional Foundation. In that organization, she had a hand in fostering networking among Canadian-Palestinian professionals and bridging connections with Palestine through education. She is currently a part of the Recent Alumnae Regional Scholars, Class of 2016.