We have come in touch with Samer through his work at The American University in Cairo (AUC), a CEMS partner university of our own. Samer works as associate professor and associate dean for graduate studies and research at the AUC as well as a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Before, he worked as assistant professor at AUC. Samer attained his PhD at McGill University.

In our exchange on the matter, Samer illustrated a clear link between the positioning of a university and the consequential role of academic thesis writing in the system of value generation. In terms of a transforming academic landscape, he observes the role of academic theses chiefly in context of those programmes that have higher shares of graduates that go on to work in research. Particularly memorable impressions from our discussion include the necessary quality of curiosity to do research, the function of curiosity as the central motivator and enabler to overcome challenges, and his perspective of the role of supervisors.