Faculty Awards
Dr. Moussa Mohammadian
Congratulations to Moussa Mohammadian for being awarded a fellowship from the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh to spend the Spring term 2024 as a Visiting Fellow in the Center.
This fellowship is the most prestigious one in the field of Philosophy of Science. Dr. Mohammadian's project focuses on the interactions between early logical empiricism and C.S. Peirce's philosophy, especially his philosophy of science. His aim is twofold: 1) study why Peirce's philosophy of science got marginalized in the course of the development of the 20th-century philosophy of science, especially in the US, despite the warm reception that it received from early advocates and sympathizers of logical empiricism; 2) to bring to the foreground some of Peirce's valuable insights, missed from the mainstream philosophy of science due to this marginalization.
Student Awards
Spring 2024-2025
Sara Mrouwe
Congratulations to Graduate Student Sara Mrouwe
(Spring 2024-2025) for receiving the Abdul Hadi Debs Endowment Award for Academic Excellence!
Earlier in the spring semester, Sara defended a remarkable Master thesis titled "The Reception of Avicenna's Distinction Between Essence and Existence in the 13th Century Islamic World: The Qūnawī-Ṭūsī Correspondence." The thesis examines the correspondence between Sufi mystic Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d.1274) and the Persian philosopher and polymath Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d.1274), focusing on the confrontation between the Akbarian theory of the 'Oneness of Being' or the 'Unity of Existence' (waḥdat al-wujūd) and that of 'being predicated with ambiguity' (al-wujūd al-maqūl bi-l-tashkīk) brought forward by al-Ṭūsī, against the background of the Avicennian doctrine of the distinction between essence and existence in everything else other than God. Sara provided a translation and an in-depth analysis of the first question posed by al-Qūnawī along with al-Ṭūsī's reply.
Sara Mrouwe will join the PhD program of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University where she will pursue her studies in Islamic philosophy, starting this upcoming Fall 2025-2026.
We wish Sara continued success in her academic journey!
Fall 2023-2024
Rayane El Masri
Congratulations for being awarded the Graduate student conference award. This award will fund Rayane's participation in the AI4 Society Symposium Series: AI and Agency hosted by the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR), that will be held on January 16th, 2024 at Stellenboch University, South Africa. Rayane will present a paper on “The Rise of Artificial Intelligence and Social Robots: A Neuro-Atypical Perspective on Personhood."
Spring 2022-2023
Issam Aldahman
Congratulations for being awarded Dr. Philip K. Hitti Prize, class of 2022-23
An AUB alumnus, Philip Hitti taught at AUB before enrolling at Columbia University to pursue his PhD. After World War I he returned to AUB where he taught until 1926. He later went back to the US where he is credited with creating the discipline of Arabic studies. Established in 2008, this award is given to the senior student who, in the judgment of the president, the dean of FAS, and the department chair, exemplifies in their academic career the scholarly spirit of AUB at its best.