AUB's most high-level visit to a major US university took place last week, to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, through a senior delegation including Deans of the Faculty of Health Sciences Dr. Iman Nuwayhid, Faculty of Medicine Mohamed Sayegh, and Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Dr. Alan Shihadeh, along with professor of medicine and director of the AUB Diabetes Program, Dr. Sami Azar, and leading diabetes researcher and associate professor, Dr. Assaad Eid.
AUB was invited by the National Academy member, world renowned neurologist, and director of the UM Program for Neurology and Discovery, Dr. Eva Feldman, whom we were honored to welcome at the Faculty of Health Sciences and at the AUB Medical Center last year, when she came to share her cutting-edge knowledge of the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases using stem cell therapy. Introducing the AUB team at a Special Guest Seminar to discuss our strategic role in lifting the quality of education and health in the MENA region, Dr. Feldman graciously described her September 2018 visit to Beirut as “one of the best—I would have to say—academic trips of my (quite long!) career."
Michigan is America's best-funded and probably its leading public research university, a university which has been transformative in its milieu and which aspires to an ever-more global impact. The burgeoning AUB-UM partnership leverages our institution's position as a leading center of high-impact research in the Global South, one which endures chronic conflict and instability that create unique and complex health issues. Our vision of expanding AUB's health disciplines and reinvigorating education and health in our region will be guided to a large degree by the inclusive and integrated approach modeled at UM.
Following the symposium, Dean Nuwayhid and UM School of Public Health Dean F. Dubois Bowman signed a memorandum of understanding for student and faculty exchange and joint research projects. Our delegation also connected with a significant number of executive and academic leaders, including the university president, Dr. Mark Schlissel, vice provost and director of the Life Sciences Institute, Dr. Roger Cone, acting vice president of research Dr. Rebecca Cunningham, as well as the deans, chairs, and professors from the schools of medicine, engineering, and architecture.