Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs

Roberto Bomfin (Post-Doctoral Associate) an NYU Global Postdoc Collaboration Grant awardee at the Wireless Research Lab, NYU Abu Dhabi, returned to New York to advance his research partnership supported by the Global NYU Collaboration Grant. From November 2 to 9, 2025, he participated in the 2025 Brooklyn 6G Summit, an event co-organized by NYU WIRELESS featuring leading industry and academic discussions. During the summit, he showcased a demonstrator developed during his collaboration, highlighting the continued success of the three-week cross-campus exchange.

Marieh Al-Handawi (Postdoctoral Associate; Sustainable Water-Harvesting Researcher) received the Research Project of the Year: STEM award at the Times Higher Education Awards Arab World 2025. Inspired by desert ecosystems, her work led to the development of biodegradable hydrogels that capture atmospheric moisture and release it into soil without electricity or human intervention — advancing solutions for agriculture, cloud-seeding, and water security while supporting the UAE’s Net Zero 2050 goals.

Nadine Hosny El Said (Postdoctoral Researcher, Biology) has been awarded the prestigious L’Oréal Prize for Women in Science Middle East, in recognition of the major research paper she co-authored this year in Nucleic Acids Research. Only three scientists across the entire Middle East received this honor in 2025. Nadine is the sole awardee in her category and the only recipient from the UAE. An award ceremony will take place in Dubai on November 27.

Minghao Shao (PhD Candidate, Computer Science) has been awarded the 2025 Google PhD Fellowship in Privacy, Safety, and Security, recognizing the strength and global relevance of his research in AI security and trustworthy machine learning systems. The fellowship is awarded to a highly selective cohort of doctoral researchers worldwide whose work demonstrates exceptional promise and impact. Shao’s research focuses on agentic systems, developing advanced autonomous workflows, and intelligent automation to improve the effectiveness, safety, and reliability of AI‑driven applications.

Yanwen Wang (Postdoctoral Associate) published “Enduring Boundaries, Emerging Bridges: Patterns of Caste and Ethnic Intermarriage in Nepal” in Social Stratification and Mobility. Using 2001 and 2011 census data, the study provides Nepal’s first nationwide analysis of intermarriage, showing it remains rare at 0.74 percent of unions. Findings highlight persistent caste and ethnic boundaries, gender asymmetries, the role of education in enabling women from disadvantaged groups to marry outside their group, and how child marriage reinforces endogamy. The study offers insights for policies addressing caste and ethnicity-based stratification.

Hanbo Wu (Postdoctoral Associate) published “Does exposure to armed conflict affect women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence? Evidence from Vietnam” in the Journal of Population Economics. The study assesses the long-term impact of the Vietnam War on Vietnamese women’s attitudes toward intimate partner violence (IPV) by combining individual-level survey data with province-level data on wartime bombing. Wu found that women living in heavily bombed provinces are more likely to accept IPV, suggesting that the normalization of and desensitization to violence in the domestic sphere, as well as war trauma, likely play a significant role in explaining the long-term effect of conflict exposure on the justification of IPV.

The GradSlam final celebrated outstanding three-minute research talks from graduate students and postdocs across NYUAD. Yousra Ajouaou (Postdoctoral Associate) won first place for her presentation on rewriting the code of aging, while Restuan Rubis (Postdoctoral Associate) was runner-up for his work on cancer drug discovery using cell painting. Imane Morjane (Postdoctoral Associate) won the People’s Choice Award for her talk on using genetic scores to prevent heart disease. The event highlighted the strength of early-career researchers and the growing impact of STEM innovation in the region.