KAUST's Osman Bakr, Assistant Professor of Material Science and Engineering, was elected as one of the first 50 members of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) this June.

The first 50 AGYA members were selected after two calls for membership in 2013 and 2014. From these calls, the organization chose 25 Arab and 25 German outstanding researchers to represent their community. The selected members came from universities and research institutions across the Middle East including Egypt, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia as well as Germany.

To celebrate the announcement, Bakr and his fellow members gathered for the opening conference in Germany at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) in Berlin to discuss topics around education, energy, water and environment, cultural heritage, innovation and transformation processes. They also attended AGYA's opening ceremony on June 21.

AGYA began in 2013 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Germany and the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain as the first bilateral young academy in the world. Its goal is to promote the cooperation between Arab and German researchers who are in the first 10 years of their career following their Ph.D.

They also support interdisciplinary projects across various fields of research, science policy and education, and see their members as ambassadors of science and culture.