Student Experience

I participated in the GPRI Graduate Exchange Program at the American University in Cairo during the fall of 2025 with the objective of conducting research and collecting iconographic data for my dissertation on symbols of power in the iconographic programs of ancient Egyptian queens. During my 6-week stay, I had originally anticipated taking advantage of the library resources—especially the Rare Books and Special Collections Library—and perhaps form connections with faculty members. However, I was pleasantly surprised to have the opportunity to sit in on several classes and to participate in class trips to museums and guided tours to archaeological sites such as Saqqara.

As part of the Global Past Student exchange program, I attended IIT Bombay. I had the opportunity to closely work with Professor Smriti Haricharan, whose research interests overlap with mine on the themes of material culture and placemaking. During the first phase of my visit (August 2025), we discussed scholarly works on material culture, particularly from an archaeological perspective. These conversations were intellectually stimulating as they helped me think of material culture beyond the study of objects, but as a process of memory, temporality, absence, and archaeological perspective.

I arrived in Toronto in October 2025 as an International Visiting Graduate Student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. I was fortunate to work under the supervision of Professor Liye Xie. It was my first visit to Canada, and I had no idea that the next few months would become one of the most memorable experiences of my academic journey.