Nashwa Eassa

Last updated

Nashwa Abo Alhassan Eassa is a nano-particle physicist from Sudan. She is an assistant professor of physics and Dean of the Deanship of Scientific Research at Al-Neelain University in Khartoum. [1] [2]

Contents

Education

Eassa received her BSc in physics from the University of Khartoum in 2004. In Sudan, those who wish to seek further education must study abroad, for women this is difficult for both financial reasons and cultural ones restricting women from traveling. Despite this she earned her Master of Science in nanotechnology and materials physics from Sweden's Linköping University in 2007. During her time at Linköping, tuition fees were not an issue for international students, however she still needed to manage her living expenses. To support her needs she worked at McDonald’s and distributed advertising to make a living for her work. [3]

Through a OWSD PhD Fellowship she was able to attend and graduate Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University from August 2008 to September 2012. During the first year of her stay she had given birth to her first child which made it difficult. [4]

In August of 2008, the OSWD PhD fellowship motivated her to continue her studies in South Africa. She was able to balance the demands of her studies, motherhood, and marriage. Despite a demanding supervisor, she completed her PhD and gained valuable research experience which was unavailable in Sudan due to a lack of facilities. [4] Her achievements at Linköping University earned her the honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Linköping, in recognition of her support to women who would want to further their education in research in Sudan. She emphasizes her want to help women in many places not only in Sudan, but also in Egypt, Yemen, Ghana, Benin, and Syria. Reflecting on her experience she states, “Support from other women in the academic world may be decisive to them continuing their career.” [3]

Career

She has been a lecturer and assistant professor of physics at Al-Neelain University since 2007. She earned her PhD from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in 2012. Since 2013, Eassa is pursuing a post-doctoral fellowship in nanophotonics at NMMU. She founded the non-governmental organization Sudanese Women in Sciences in 2013 and is a member of Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World's South African Institute of Physics. [5] From 2016 to 2020, Eassa also held the title of Vice President of the "Arab Region of Organization for Women Scientist in Developing World [6]

In 2015, Eassa won the Elsevier Foundation Award for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World. The award recognized her research on lessening film accumulation on the surface of high-speed semiconductors. [1] [7] [8]

Eassa is involved in the development of nanotube structures and titanium oxide nanoparticles. She is also involved in projects to develop methods to split water molecules for hydrogen collection and to sanitize water with solar radiation. [9] [1]

She has been a candidate as Arab Countries Vice-President for Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. [10]

As an Assistant Professor in Khartoum, her achievements include prestigious awards like the Elsevier Award and the Lindau Prize. These awards brought a great deal of international visibility and opportunities. She aspires to inspire the next generation of women scientists in Sudan by improve training opportunities and fosters support through industries like an OWSD National Chapter. [4]

Nashwa has an inspiring journey as a Sudanese woman physicist who overcame cultural and academic challenges to achieve international recognition. In Sudan, societal norms restrict women’s independence, but she pursued her passion for physics despite its limited resources and lack of stability. [4]

Publications

Eassa's professional work appears in publications from journals like the African Journal of Engineering and the 2021 International Congress of Advanced Technology and Engineering. [11] [12] Aside from her publications on nanoparticles, she has also integrated her push for "gender equality" and the "gender gap in science and technology" in articles like her 2015 "Development of Sudanese Women in Physics". [13]

Advocacy work

Eassa has contributed to multiple works detailing the roadblocks African scientists face. Eassa states that the African government's lack of attention to scientific research is the main cause of the low funding that researchers receive. [2] This trickles down to individual researchers not developing the skills they need and working in poor research environments.Eassa has also conducted research on the demographic of female physicists in Sudan. The research, conducted at Al Neelain University in Khartoum, highlights a university where the enrollment of female undergraduate physics students is double that of male students. Eassa collected data about the female students' interest in continuing their post-secondary education journeys and the effects of financial hardships on that decision. This research showed that an overwhelming number of female physicists at the university held lecturer positions due to the lack of female physicists attaining higher degrees. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Khartoum</span> Public university in Sudan

The University of Khartoum is a public university located in Khartoum, Sudan. It is the largest and oldest university in Sudan. UofK was founded as Gordon Memorial College in 1902 and established in 1956 when Sudan gained independence. Since that date, the University of Khartoum has been recognized as a top university and a high-ranked academic institution in Sudan and Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sudan University of Science and Technology</span> University in Khartoum State, Sudan

Sudan University of Science and Technology is one of the largest public universities in Sudan, with ten campuses in Khartoum state. The main campus is located in the so-called Al Mugran area of Khartoum, the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in science</span> Contributions of women to the field of science

The presence of women in science spans the earliest times of the history of science wherein they have made significant contributions. Historians with an interest in gender and science have researched the scientific endeavors and accomplishments of women, the barriers they have faced, and the strategies implemented to have their work peer-reviewed and accepted in major scientific journals and other publications. The historical, critical, and sociological study of these issues has become an academic discipline in its own right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leila Aboulela</span> Sudanese writer (born 1964)

Leila Fuad Aboulela is a fiction writer, essayist, and playwright of Sudanese origin based in Aberdeen, Scotland. She grew up in Khartoum, Sudan, and moved to Scotland in 1990 where she began her literary career. Until 2023, Aboulela has published six novels and several short stories, which have been translated into fifteen languages. Her most popular novels, Minaret (2005) and The Translator (1999) both feature the stories of Muslim women in the UK and were longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and Orange Prize. Aboulela's works have been included in publications such as Harper's Magazine, Granta, The Washington Post and The Guardian. BBC Radio has adapted her work extensively and broadcast a number of her plays, including The Insider, The Mystic Life and the historical drama The Lion of Chechnya. The five-part radio serialization of her 1999 novel The Translator was short-listed for the Race In the Media Award (RIMA).

Amanda Susan Barnard is an Australian theoretical physicist working in predicting the real world behavior of nanoparticles using analytical models and supercomputer simulations and applied machine learning. Barnard is a pioneer in the thermodynamic cartography of nanomaterials, creating nanoscale phase diagrams relevant to different environmental conditions, and relating these to structure/property maps. Her current research involves developing and applying statistical methods and machine/deep learning in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and materials and molecular informatics. In 2014 she became the first person in the southern hemisphere, and the first woman, to win the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, which she won for her work on diamond nanoparticles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan</span> Sudanese mathematician and physicist (born 1947)

Mohamed Hag Ali Hag el HassanOMRI GCONMC FAAS FIAS FTWAS is a Sudanese-Italian mathematician and physicist who co-founded numerous scientific councils. He is the President of The World Academy of Sciences and Sudanese National Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisca Nneka Okeke</span> Nigerian professor & physicist

Francisca Nneka Okeke is a Nigerian physicist. She is a Professor of Physics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and first female head of a department in the University.

Hadiyah-Nicole Green (1981-) is an American medical physicist, known for the development of a method using laser-activated nanoparticles as a potential cancer treatment. She is one of 66 black women to earn a Ph.D. in physics in the United States between 1973 and 2012, and is the second black woman and the fourth black person ever to earn a doctoral degree in physics from The University of Alabama at Birmingham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zeinab Elobeid Yousif</span> Sudanese aircraft engineer

Zeinab Elobeid Yousif, was a Sudanese aircraft engineer. She was the first Sudanese woman to be licensed by the Civil Aviation Authority in the United Kingdom. From July 1973 until May 1992, she worked with Sudan Airways, after which she relocated to the United Kingdom.

Rabia Salihu Sa'id is a Nigerian physicist, professor of atmospheric and space-weather physics, and a researcher at Bayero University Kano. She conducts research in atmospheric and space weather physics, particle physics, and electronics. Sa'id is an advocate and mentor for young women in science with the Visiola Foundation and Peace Corps; she co-founded Nigeria's Association of Women Physicists. She is an advocate and mentor of Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and is a facilitator for the British Council's Active Citizens' Programme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award</span> Annual award for women scientists

The OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Awards for Early-Career Women Scientists in the Developing World are awarded annually to early-career women scientists in selected developing countries in four regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Central and South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shohini Ghose</span> Indian-Canadian physicist

Shohini Ghose is a quantum physicist and Professor of Physics and Computer Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has served as the president of the Canadian Association of Physicists (2019-2020), co-editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Physics, and the Director of the Laurier Centre for Women in Science. She was named a 2014 TED Fellow and a 2018 TED Senior Fellow. In 2019 she appeared on the Star TV show TED Talks India Nayi Baat hosted by Shah Rukh Khan. In 2017 she was elected to the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. Her book Clues to the Cosmos was released in India in December 2019. In 2020, she was selected as an NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering.

Hiba Salah-Eldin Mohamed is a Sudanese molecular biologist who works at the University of Khartoum. She won the 2007 Royal Society Pfizer Award.

María Magdalena González Sánchez is a Mexican astrophysicist, nuclear physicist, researcher, and professor best known for her contributions in gamma ray research and for being the head of the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Experiment (HAWC). She has published 90 articles about her field of study in indexed journals. In 2015 she received the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Recognition from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Asma Abdel Rahim El Dareer is a Sudanese physician known for her research in the 1980s into female genital mutilation. She was one of the first Arab women and feminist doctors to speak out publicly against the practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priscilla Kolibea Mante</span> Ghanaian neuropharmacologist

Priscilla Kolibea Mante is a Ghanaian neuropharmacologist, a researcher and lecturer from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, currently based at the Kumasi campus. Her research work focuses on alternatives of plant-based therapeutic options to manage drug-resistant epilepsy and the neglected tropical disease neurocysticercosis. In her work, she mostly explores the anticonvulsant activity of the plant alkaloid cryptolepine and its solid-lipid nanoparticles in the management of neurocysticercosis-induced epilepsy. Her goal is to identify a way to help cryptolepine permeate more efficiently into the central nervous system to reduce the risk of convulsion, helping patients to manage their condition as effectively as possible. Aside from her studies of epilepsy, Mante has also worked toward new therapies to alleviate pain, anxiety, and depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gada Kadoda</span>

Gada Kadoda is a Sudanese Engineer and associate professor at Garden City College for Science and Technology. She teaches at the University of Khartoum, where she introduced a course in knowledge management. She has previously served as President of the Sudanese Knowledge Society. She was selected as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2019.

Kwang Hwa Chung is a South Korean physicist who has served as president of the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, the Korea Basic Science Institute, and the Korean Vacuum Society. She has received the Moran Medal of the Order of Civil Merit, as well as other honors and awards for her scientific research and work to promote professionalism for women in STEM fields.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wren, Kathy (14 February 2015). "Early-Career Women Scientists From Developing Countries Honored at AAAS Annual Meeting". Advance Science, Serving Society. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  2. 1 2 Sa’id, Rabia Salihu; Fuwape, Ibiyinka; Dikandé, Alain Moise; Mimouni, Jamal; Hasford, Francis; Haynes, Delia; Gledhill, Igle; Amolo, George; Akin-Ojo, Omololu; Eassa, Nashwa (October 2020). "Physics in Africa". Nature Reviews Physics. 2 (10): 520–523. Bibcode:2020NatRP...2..520S. doi:10.1038/s42254-020-0239-8. ISSN   2522-5820. PMC   7500249 . PMID   33728404.
  3. 1 2 Bergstedt, Eva. "Honorary doctor from Sudan fighting for women in academia". liu.se. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "We need Women in Decision-Making Positions". OWSD. 1 July 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
  5. ↑ Mwaniki, Joy (1 July 2015). "Five African Female Scientists You Should Definitely Know About". Ayiba Magazine. Archived from the original on 18 October 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2015.
  6. ↑ "Keynote speakers". 2015 10th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST). IEEE. December 2015. p. 14. doi:10.1109/icitst.2015.7412040. ISBN   978-1-9083-2052-0.
  7. ↑ Venton, Danielle (17 February 2015). "Tough As Nails: Female Scientists Rise Up In Nigeria". NPR.
  8. ↑ "Vietnamese Mathematician Wins Elsevier Foundation Award". Asian Scientist Magazine. 24 February 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  9. ↑ "Women Scientists in Developing Countries Receive Elsevier Foundation Awards for Physics and Math". Elsevier. 10 February 2015.
  10. ↑ "Eassa Nashwa Elected Vice-President | OWSD". owsd.net. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  11. ↑ Emam, Reem; Eassa, Nashwa (12 July 2021). "Synthesis, Characterization and Size Evaluation of Biosynthesized Silver Nanoparticles by UV–Vis Spectroscopy". African Journal of Engineering & Technology. 1 (1). doi: 10.47959/AJET.2021.1.1.5 . ISSN   2744-5151.
  12. ↑ Adam, Ali A.; Elhag, Nihad A. A.; Saeed, Fakhreldeen Abbas; Yagob, Mohamed; Mohamed, Fayha; Eassa, N.; Abdalaziz, Hanaa S.; Ahmed, M. A.; Babiker, Sharief F. (4 July 2021). "An Ensemble Machine Learning Model to Investigate the Screening System for Identification of Potential Patients with COVID-19 in Sudan". 2021 International Congress of Advanced Technology and Engineering (ICOTEN). IEEE. pp. 1–5. doi:10.1109/ICOTEN52080.2021.9493517. ISBN   978-1-6654-1224-7.
  13. 1 2 Eassa, Nashwa; Elmardi, Maye; Adam, Buthaina; Elgadi, Mayada; Abass, Sara (2015). "Development of Sudanese women in physics". Women in Physics: 5th Iupap International Conference on Women in Physics. AIP Conference Proceedings. 1702 (1): 060040. Bibcode:2015AIPC.1697f0040E. doi:10.1063/1.4937687.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.