Undergraduate and Global Education

Julie Beaulieu, (Class of 2026), has won the Rhodes Scholarship for Canada for the province of Quebec.  Julie grew up on a dairy farm in rural Quebec and attended the Pearson United World College in British Columbia, where she won the Governor General's Academic Medal of Canada. At NYU Abu Dhabi, she is pursuing a double major in Social Research & Public Policy and Political Science, as well as a minor in Arabic. Passionate about global food security, Julie has worked with the World Bank in Ghana, the UN in Uzbekistan, and COP30 in Brazil. She is the president of the campus environmental group, a cast member in the RealAD show, and captain of the dragon boat racing team. She plans to pursue an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford.  

Mehdi Marrakchi (Bioengineering) presented his summer research conducted in David Fenyo's lab at NYU Langone at the Clinical and Translational Omics Symposium in Cyprus. Reflecting on the experience, Mehdi said the symposium affirmed his enjoyment of being part of a scholarly community, where informal discussions during coffee breaks and spontaneous exchanges after talks revealed how collaborative energy drives scientific progress. He returned from Cyprus with new contacts, potential mentors, and strengthened motivation to pursue graduate studies in computational biology.

Zareth Ramos (Social Research and Public Policy) represented the student voice at Course Design Through the Student Lens: Lessons from the Student-Faculty Partners Program, part of the NYU Teach Talks series on November 13, 2025. The discussion emphasized the value of student-faculty collaboration in shaping meaningful learning experiences, encouraging educators to see course design as a shared process informed by diverse perspectives and authentic learner feedback. The video is available on the TeachTalks stream channel, along with the slide deck.

Sungyun Sohn, Andre Llaneta, Hugh Richards Maldonado, Hamed Alolama, Hind Al Mualla, and Marwa Faqihi (Students) placed third in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League STEM Competition, posting the fastest lap of the day in time trials. Hosted by the Advanced Technology Research Council and the Technology Innovation Institute in partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the competition challenged students to develop autonomous racing solutions. Working in the NYUAD Engineering Design Studio, the team utilized offline machine learning to create a smooth, fast model for aggressive racing lines, demonstrating the University's commitment to hands-on STEM innovation and sustainable technology leadership.

The Writing Program hosted two talks in its Humanities at Work series, which brings speakers who translate academic ideas for broader public audiences. Omar Shahid, a serving police officer and crime fiction writer, discussed how investigative practice, police archives, and museum curation inform narrative, justice, and public memory. His talk, organized in collaboration with the Program of Literature and Creative Writing, was moderated by Sabyn Javeri (Senior Lecturer of Writing and Literature and Creative Writing). John Gribble, marine archaeologist and founder of TerraMare Archaeology, reflected on his role in negotiating UNESCO’s 2001 Convention for the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage and shared the story of the SS Mendi, a WWI-era shipwreck carrying over 600 members of the South African Native Labour Corps. His talk was moderated by Jonathan Sharfman (Lecturer of Writing).

NYU Abu Dhabi students secured second place in the highly competitive finals of the ADNOC–Bloomberg UAE Energy Investment Academy 2025, held during ADIPEC, continuing NYUAD's five-year legacy of excellence at the academy. The team, advised by Saba Najeeb (Instructor of Social Science), featured students Khalifa Shael Al Saadi and Abdulmalek Alhamadi, who presented an innovative project exploring how the UAE can strengthen its future energy leadership through hydrogen development, AI integration, and forward-looking policy. This accomplishment underscores the University's commitment to preparing students to lead the energy transition.

Recent months have been especially vibrant for our academic community, with students presenting their work at major international conferences. Highlights include presentations by Marcos Hernández at SRC2025 in the UAE, Sipan Hovsepian in Marseille, Mehdi Marrakchi in Cyprus, and Charlie Fong at the MESA Undergraduate Workshop in Washington, D.C. NYUAD was also strongly represented at EMNLP 2025 in Suzhou, where Anubhav Shrestha and Aadim Nepal showcased their computational and linguistic research. These achievements highlight the strength of our research ecosystem and the growing global visibility of our students.

Momentum is also building for the inaugural cycle of the Laidlaw Scholars Leadership and Research Program. More than 80 students have attended information sessions ahead of the November 25 application launch for this 18-month program, which combines rigorous research with leadership development, global collaboration, and funded experiential learning.

The Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) hosted the fourth annual Academic Majors Fair on October 30, 2025, with over 1,000 students in attendance. Faculty and departmental representatives from across the university participated, contributing to the event’s soaring success. Browse these pictures to revisit the evening.

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) Peer Tutoring Program has earned Level 1 Certification from the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA), recognizing its adherence to international standards for tutor selection, training, supervision, and evaluation. Tutors who complete the program can now be certified internationally. Led by April Sanders, (Associate Director of the ARC), and supported by faculty liaisons, the program aligns tutoring with course curricula. Since its launch in fall 2022, over 40 tutors have covered 50 courses across all four divisions, serving more than 4,800 students, with 97% of participants recommending the program.

The Center for Writing announced the inaugural Ken Nielsen Prize for Writers on Writing in honor of the late Dr. Ken Nielsen, a founding faculty member whose visionary work shaped the study of writing at NYUAD. Inspired by his popular FYWS course, "Writers on Writing," the award celebrates innovative student work examining the relationships between writers, writing, knowledge, identity, and expression. This year, the Center received forty-six submissions and selected nine winners: Amna Al Mheiri [Caught Ink-handed]; Anna Binabdullah [The Girls Who Write Boys]; Manoj Dhakal [The Feverish Intention: A Critical-Creative Exploration of Writing in the Age of AI]; Aditi Adhikari [If My Fellow Women Had a Diary: A Personal Narrative on Journaling, Gender, and Voice in Nepal]; Dana Nicole Rodgers Ferreira [Writing with an Accent: A Bilingual Self Between Translation and Algorithms]; Dulce Maria Pop-Bonini [Translation for the Unspoken]; Malavika Rajesh [My Mother's Drafts]; Ting-An Yang [Glimpses]; and Yana Peeva [Golden Middle].

The Core Curriculum, in collaboration with the Arts Center, Visiting Professor Harshana Rambukwella (Literature and Creative Writing), and the Literature and Creative Writing Program, co-sponsored two special performances of the award-winning Dear Children, Sincerely… by Stages Theatre Group (Sri Lanka) and Mashirika Performing Arts and Media Co (Rwanda) on September 25 and 26. Curated for the Class of 2029 to extend the themes of love, loss, and community-building explored in this year's NYU Reads selection, Orbital by Samantha Harvey, each performance was followed by a discussion facilitated by Samuel Anderson (Senior Lecturer of Writing) and Abhishek Majumdar (Program Head of Theatre; Arts Professor of Theatre).