Meet our alumni award-winners 39
Alumna of the Year: Dr Lina Fahmi Hammad
MSc Medical Physics 1993
Dr Lina Hammad is a trailblazer in her field and role model. She is the first Saudi female graduate from King Saud University and the first Saudi MSc and PhD holder in medical physics. And, as Dean of Princess Nourah
University, Lina is opening a path for female students to participate in higher education.
During her deanship at the only women’s university in Saudi Arabia, she has established two units that will increase
female empowerment and volunteer work. ‘The Innovation Unit’ encourages students and academic staff to work on innovations for medical problems and apply for patency, and ‘The Society Initiatives Unit’ collaborates with different institutes outside the University for community benefit.
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“These initiatives have taught students the importance of using the knowledge gained to help and educate society,” said Lina. “The journey for the young Saudi female is long and full of challenges and I hope my work will empower young Saudi women and facilitate knowledge transfer to a large portion of them.”
The aspect she most enjoys about her role is inspiring staff and students to be creative and achieve. Her future goals include increasing scientific research and opening postgraduate programmes at Princess Nourah University.
On being named Alumna of the Year, Lina said: “It was an honour and great pleasure to receive my award. It demonstrates the great relationship the University of Surrey is building with it students and graduates.”
Alumni Achievement Award: Dr Y Gavriel Ansara
PhD Psychology 2014
As a child, Dr Gávi Ansara was surrounded by people of different faiths and cultures, living in different parts of the world. These experiences have leſt a lasting impression upon him and his work in human rights and social justice can be traced back to the stories he heard and the places he visited from an early age.
Looking back on his childhood, Gávi believes is was inevitable his later life would be driven by a passion to effect social change to improve people’s lives.
He said. “I grew up in rural and urban China, Australia, and elsewhere. My parents had many close social bonds with people who were immigrants or refugees from around the world. Even before I started school, I understood that there were many different ways to view the world and many different customs and rules for social behaviour.”
Now based in Australia, Gávi is internationally recognised as a leading scholar on intersex, trans, and non-binary gender health and as a health policy consultant at government level. His research explores the ideology of cisgenderism – a world view that invalidates people who designate their own genders in ways that differ from those assigned to them by others.
Gávi acknowledges that being a pioneer for social justice can be lonely, exhausting, and unappreciated, but he says the highlights, such as his recent Surrey award, re-energise his efforts.
“Being chosen as one of Surrey’s Alumni Achievement Award-winners is deeply meaningful to me, because it shows that this work is valued. I hope it will encourage more Surrey graduates to undertake social justice work and remind people who already do this work that their achievements matter.”
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