Youth Innovation and Creativity

Peter Gerges’ dream was to study bioinformatics “how to extract the information from our genetic material that will help us in more understand how diseases occur and how our body interacts with a different drug so could track the disease before it happens (like cancers) and determine specific drug for each patient.” But when he started a Masters degree in Bioinformatics in Egypt, his dreams started evaporating as he was studying mostly computer science. He was told to take it or leave it. Peter decided to leave the program and educate himself through medical papers and research.  He then approached a professor in the U.S. who works in his specific field. After a rigorous interview process, Peter was offered a research fellowship with The University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Department of Immunology, with an annual stipend.  However, Peter didn’t have the means to move to the U.S. Your generous donations enabled us to offer him a scholarship to bridge that gap.  Michelle Sous Foundation sponsored Peter’s ticket and pocket money that got him through his first month at the School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh.

Abanoub Sedkey had long dreamed of pursuing his graduate studies abroad. He had applied diligently, had been accepted into 4 different universities in Germany, but with no means to pay for his studies. With your support, his dream came true as of Fall 2021. Sedkey has commenced his studies at Freiburg University in Germany and the University of Strasbourg in France in a joint international master’s degree program with a Michelle Sous Foundation scholarship of $1500, made possible by you our donors!  

“I believe…(the) broad spectrum of research areas including drug delivery, biomaterials specially the technologies of tissue engineering, Uptake and Trafficking of nanomaterials will for sure push me towards my life dream. Working in any of these areas is a phenomenal opportunity for me and fits my curiosity.” - Abanoub Sedky

Gerges Mikhail is pursuing a PhD in the field of Coptic, Copto-Arabic, and Byzantine studies. He regularly travels from his hometown in Minya, to Cairo, in order to teach Coptic language, and literature at the Theological College as a volunteer. He also lectures at the local seminaries in Minya and has established an educational service in his local church.

Kerolos Mousa Agaypi, a brilliant student at the Misr University for Science and Technology in Egypt, was offered to join a group of researchers at The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as they made a significant breakthrough in the field of nano scale optics and meta surfaces.

Upon learning of Kerolos’s once in a lifetime opportunity in 2017, the Michelle Sous Foundation was thrilled to support him in his quest to raise funds to cover his living expenses for a year in Massachusetts, Boston, in 2018 as he worked on this prestigious scientific project.

In 2018, the group of Harvard scientists discovered a method to overcome the limitations of conventional spectrometers, enabling them to refine their spectral resolution and the range for optical systems previously used. This breakthrough holds new promise to medical and biological discoveries as it enables the use of the technology in achieving ultracompact applications such as molecular identifications and high-performance imaging of biological systems.

Essentially, with the new portable spectrometers this technology can make available, it will be possible to diagnose diseases that were too difficult to detect, in the past, due to imaging limitations. The discovery also has significance for a wide range of industries that rely on high performance optic lenses and cameras. Next, the research team aims to scale up the lens they made to be about 1 cm in diameter, which would enable applications in virtual and augmented reality. The Harvard Office of Technology Development, which has protected the intellectual property of this project, has further licensed it to a startup for commercial development.

Concluding his time with the research team, Kerolos contributed to the publishing of two articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The articles are titled “Broadband Achromatic Meta surface-Refractive Optics” published in Nano Letters, and “Compact Aberration‐Corrected Spectrometers in the Visible Using Dispersion‐Tailored Metasurfaces” published with Advanced Optical Materials.

Agaypi is now pursuing a PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University

Monik Moanes is spending her life savings on an MBA in Healthcare Management from Lasell University. She has worked in pharmaceuticals for many years. During a recent hard experience with a close family member, Monik witnessed how a broken healthcare system can lead to patients losing their lives unnecessarily. “In May 2022, my cousin received a stage-four cancer diagnosis. Tragically, it was not the cancer itself but a systemic error within one of Egypt's largest hospitals that led to her death. A miscalculation of bed availability delayed her critical surgery, and by the time this error was corrected, it was too late.” This experience, among many others witnessed by Monik as a pharmacist, “underscored the pressing need for systemic improvements in healthcare management.”

Monik’s dream is to return to Egypt, equipped with the knowledge and experience needed to reform the healthcare system. Michelle Sous Foundation is supporting Monik with a partial scholarship towards her educational expenses.

Help the Michelle Sous Foundation continue to support innovative and creative youth by donating here