“What I would do, and I thought it was research, is to Google the terms that I hear on TV,” Soliman says. “And when I did that, the first result that you will get is Wikipedia. So I’d get into Wikipedia, and I got a small notebook. … And I would copy and paste, write down definitions.”

Soliman, a Fulbright scholar and graduate student in biological sciences at Binghamton, has been a researcher ever since. An evolutionary biologist interested in the formation of new and distinct species in Mimulus plants, Soliman studied biotechnology and molecular biology as an undergraduate at Cairo University.

Also known as monkeyflowers because some of its species have flowers resembling a monkey’s face, plants from the genus Mimulus are one of the model organisms used to study evolution.

In trying to answer how different Mimulus plant species are formed, Soliman and her colleagues complete basic plant care such as watering, repotting and fertilizing. Next, they conduct artificial crosses, where they move pollen from one plant to the female parts of another plant. This enables them to explore the reproductive isolation of the two plant species. They also study how much the hybrid seeds produced from those crosses suffer from reduction in fitness compared to their parents. This can help in understanding how separate species are created and maintained over time.

While she’s acclimated now, when Soliman began her master’s program in the fall, her new environment introduced a multitude of obstacles.

“Whenever I thought of my family, I would immediately cry,” she says. “And then I would think, no, I’m not sad. I’m just homesick. But you miss the food, you miss the family. You miss whatever activities you all used to do.”

Soliman eventually found ways to maintain that close connection with her family, making being away from them much easier to manage.

The close relationship Soliman has with her family extends to her education. Due to family influence and cultural norms, she neglected some of the subjects she initially wanted to study.

“In Egypt, astronomy is not a field that will bring you money and food on the table,” Soliman says. “You have to work in the medical field to get money. Because people care about medicine.”

Considering multiple fields chosen through culture and family influence, even researching evolution was risky for Soliman. Still, during her senior year of college, she took an evolutionary genetics course. At that moment, she knew no other topic piqued her interest like this one.

“I started to see in color, like everything before was black and white. Before, I didn’t pay attention, I just did the work to get my A plus,” Soliman says. “But this is when I began bothering and nagging my professor with constant questions.”

As she grew determined to study evolution, Soliman spoke with her professors and learned of the Fulbright scholars program from a chemistry teacher at her school.

This determination to understand more has also translated into Soliman’s work ethic as a researcher at Binghamton. James Sobel, an associate professor of biological sciences and Soliman’s mentor, describes her as unique.

“She is the kind of person who asks questions constantly. She has this drive to know things and a curiosity that is overwhelming,” Sobel says. “That is the only thing I can’t teach a student — or at least I haven’t figured out how to — that intrinsic motivation. It’s one of those things that some students develop, but as a graduate student you either have it or you don’t.”

After completing graduate school in the spring of 2022, Soliman plans to teach at her alma mater. She ultimately wants to continue her research in evolution and obtain a doctorate in the United States.

“Pursue your dreams and do whatever you like even if it’s against the odds,” Soliman says. “Just do the hard work, and everything will come to you.”

Nadia Rubaii, an associate professor of public administration, received a Fulbright grant to conduct research beginning in January at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. She will study how accreditation of public administration schools can improve graduate education and, ultimately, build more effective governments.

By conducting her research in Latin America, Rubaii hopes to examine to what extent U.S. standards can be used in other countries, based on whether they make sense culturally, politically and economically.

“What it’s forcing us to do is to learn from each other,” she said, “and to recognize that our way of doing things, which might be good, isn’t necessarily the only way or the best way.”

Rubaii believes that better public administration education will lead to more effective government institutions and ultimately increase the quality of life for people. “The real end goal,” she said, “is for governments all around the world to have sufficient capacities to engage in sustainable economic development, to promote improved health, education and security and to reduce crime, inequality, discrimination and poverty among their populations.”

An intermediate step is to improve the professionalization of government, she noted. She hopes that societies all around the world will value people who have a formal education in public administration as having something to contribute to government — not necessarily as elected officials, but as the people who do the day-to-day work of government.

Schools can seek public administration accreditation in the United States, and now internationally, through the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). Rubaii oversaw NASPAA as its president and chaired its accreditation board for two years.

“Accreditation offers a kind of stamp of assessment and approval of quality,” Rubaii said. “If you as a student are looking to choose among programs, you know that the ones that are accredited have already been reviewed by somebody.”

Accrediting bodies evaluate a program’s curriculum quality, faculty credentials, student experience, placement record, admission standards and what knowledge and skills students have after graduating. Rubaii’s research focuses on how those standards differ internationally.

“Accreditation now from this organization is available to programs outside the United States, but the standards for accreditation are based on how we think about quality in the U.S.,” Rubaii said. “Those are not necessarily universal values or measures of quality.”

Sebastian Lippez De Castro, a graduate of Binghamton’s public administration graduate program and member of the faculty at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, worked with Rubaii in Binghamton researching the possibility of applying NASPAA standards to graduate public service programs in Latin America.

“She was always genuinely interested in listening, on both our experiences with Colombia’s higher education system and what we were able to learn about other Latin American countries’ systems,” De Castro said. “Her leadership style includes her cultural sensitivity.”

De Castro said he and other faculty members at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana look forward to working with Rubaii next year. “We not only expect to learn from her knowledge and experience regarding specific public administration topics, but also expect her research will help or graduate public service programs improve their quality,” De Castro said.

Other research of Rubaii’s, centered on the role of local governments in helping immigrants assimilate in the United States, helped shape a philosophy on diversity that drives her research. “It increasingly has been expanding to a focus on international diversity and cultural diversity, and so it’s an appreciation for diversity that connects the two,” she said. “It also reflects a genuine commitment to a notion of being part of a global community.”