Inauguration Program

Demos

• 10am–6pm | Grow Gratitude — Interactive Writing Station paying Tributes to Women

  Location: Campus Center (C2)

  Co-hosted by the Health Promotion Office and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for International Women's Day on March 8.

• 12–5pm | Grow Art — The Sovereign Forest

  Location: Art Gallery (A4)

  The Sovereign Forest, by Amar Kanwar, in collaboration with Sudhir Pattnaik/Samadrusti and Sherna Dastur, is an ongoing multimedia installation that is a creative response to crime, politics, human rights, and ecological crisis. It evolved out of the political and environmental conflict in the resource-rich, and the largely tribal Indian state of Odisha. Kanwar has been observing and documenting the industrial interventions that have irrevocably altered Odisha’s landscape for more than a decade. The Sovereign Forest is a long-term commitment of the artist with media activist Sudhir Pattnaik, and designer and filmmaker Sherna Dastur.

  

• 3–5pm | Grow Athletes

  Location: Campus Center (C2), Main Gym

  Family inclusive athletic activities in the gymnasium.

  

• 5–6pm | Grow Fun — Live DJ Set with Kid Koala

  Location: The Arts Center (C3), Lobby

  Join renown DJ, music producer, film composer, video game composer, multimedia-performer, and award-winning graphic novelist Kid Koala for a special DJ set in honor of NYUAD inaugural festivities. This is a fantastic opportunity to see this exciting artist up close, get your dance on, and celebrate our campus community.

• 6:30–7:30pm | Grow Skills — Interactive Live Cinema and Live Scoring Technique Workshop

  Location: The Arts Center (C3)

  And the Oscar goes to… This interactive, digital workshop introduces you to the world of musical scoring for film.
  

Dialogues

• 10-11am | Grow Life

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room C

  A discussion on the impact of genomics on wellness and society.

  Fabio Piano, Provost, NYU Abu Dhabi; Professor of Biology; Founding Director, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology
  Peter Bearman, Director, Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE), and Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Sociology
  

• 11:30am-12:30pm | Grow Between the Disciplines

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room B

  A discussion of interdisciplinarity across the topics of race, genetics, research, and teaching.

  Alondra Nelson, President, Social Science Research Council; Harold F. Linder Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study
  Wim Wiewel, President of Lewis & Clark College
  Moderator: May Al-Dabbagh, Assistant Professor of Social Research and Public Policy, NYU Abu Dhabi

• 11:30am-12:30pm | Grow Philosophers

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room A

  What is ecumenism — what has it been historically as a philosophical, theological, and social or political ideal? Why do we need it today, and how can a university, and NYUAD in particular, contribute to its presence in the world?

  John Sexton, President Emeritus of NYU University
  Taneli Kukkonen, Dean of Arts and Humanities, Professor of Philosophy, NYU Abu Dhabi

• 11:30am-12:30pm | Grow Inclusive Leaders

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room C
  

  A cross-sector conversation about how to institutionalize a culture of inclusion.

  Lisa Coleman, Senior Vice President for Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation and Chief Diversity Officer, NYU
  Jessica Sederquist, Chief of Staff, NYU Abu Dhabi
  Sawsan Abdel-Razig, MD, FACP, MEHP, Chair of Medical Education and Hospital Medicine Consultant, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi
  Pascale Anglade, MD MBA, Director of Physician Experience, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, Consultant Gastroenterology/Hepatology, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi 
  Moderator: Fatma Abdulla, Senior Vice Provost, Strategy and Planning

• 3-4pm | KEYNOTE: What's Our Purpose? The University and Society in Times of Challenge

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Lecture Hall
  

  A panel of university presidents and leading faculty discuss how higher education can improve and evolve society.

  Adam Habib, Vice Chancellor, University of the Witwatersrand, of South Africa
  Sari Nusseibeh, President Emeritus, Al-Quds University
  Ron Robin, President of the University of Haifa, and former Senior Vice Provost, NYU and NYU Abu Dhabi
  Barbara R. Snyder, President, Case Western Reserve University
  Moderator: Mariët Westermann, Vice Chancellor, NYU Abu Dhabi

• 5-6pm | Grow Storytellers

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room A

  Every culture, every community, and every institution have a story to tell to establish their past, situate their present, and propel their future. Join a discussion around story-telling and its ability to connect us to our past and present.

  Philip Kennedy, Library of Arabic Literature, NYU Abu Dhabi
  Marina Warner, a “literary light of London,” writer of fiction, criticism, and history
  

• 5-6pm | Grow Art Exhibitions

  Location: Art Gallery and Reading Room (A4)
  

  Does a university context change how we understand what exhibitions are for?

  Moderator: Maya Allison, Chief Curator and Founding Executive Director, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
  

Dreams

• 6-7pm | Grow Literacy — Book Launch: ElevatED

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room A

  ElevatED is a student interest group at NYUAD focused on education-related initiatives. Its mission is to facilitate spaces for dialogue, exchange, and innovative ways to think about Education. Where is Home? أين هو المنزل؟ is a student-led children’s book project in collaboration with We Love Reading, an Education NGO based in Jordan, and the NYUAD Arts and Humanities Division. The book will benefit children and families in Jordan, in addition to children in refugee camps, promoting the love for reading and literacy education in Standard Arabic and English. NYUAD alumni and current students envisioned this project to apply classroom knowledge beyond the university; hoping that each child and family interacting with this story would connect to the beautiful sense of humanity the book is filled with. People continuously ask themselves: Where is home? What is home? Where do we belong? From China to Antarctica, and across to the Amazon as the book shows, this project is a celebration of the love for the diversity of our planet Earth.

Demos

• 12–8pm | Grow Art — The Sovereign Forest

  Location: Art Gallery (A4)

  The Sovereign Forest, by Amar Kanwar, in collaboration with Sudhir Pattnaik/Samadrusti and Sherna Dastur, is an ongoing multimedia installation that is a creative response to crime, politics, human rights, and ecological crisis. It evolved out of the political and environmental conflict in the resource-rich, and the largely tribal Indian state of Odisha. Kanwar has been observing and documenting the industrial interventions that have irrevocably altered Odisha’s landscape for more than a decade. The Sovereign Forest is a long-term commitment of the artist with media activist Sudhir Pattnaik, and designer and filmmaker Sherna Dastur.

  

• 12:30–2pm | Grow Food — A Culinary Experience

  Location: Central Plaza

  A culinary experience illuminating the social significance of a shared meal in driving cultural appreciation, understanding, and connection. 

  Jonathan Shannon, Program Head, Arab Crossroads, NYU Abu Dhabi
  Hanan Worrell, author and “international recipe hunter”
  

  

• 1–2pm | Grow a Healthy UAE

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room B and C
  

  Dr. Raghib Ali and the Public Health Research Center team will take us inside the UAE Healthy Future Study, the first-ever prospective cohort study in the UAE. Established in 2014, the study team of 40 researchers with thousands of local participants at clinics across the UAE are breaking new ground in identifying the risks and causes of disease, influences, and preventative factors that make up the health of the UAE community. This effort drives impact across the country and showcases the power of our collaborative community. This will be a clinical interactive demo where you can experience the participant journey, including having your body composition analyzed, as well as a discussion with clinician partners and study participants.

  Raghib Ali, Director, Public Health Research Center, NYU Abu Dhabi

  

Dialogues

• 9:30–10:30am | Grow Futures

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room B

  Barrydale is a culturally-diverse, rural village located in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The town still harbors remnants of the apartheid era visible today in the lives of its citizens through an ongoing cycle of economic and educational deprivation, exploitation, and gendered violence. How does Barrydale break this cycle?
  
  Join Jane Taylor as she shares with us her spectrum of work at the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects, (LoKO) — a Mellon-funded program at the Center for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape. In Barrydale, Jane, and her partners at the Handspring Puppet Company activate children’s engagement through dialogue and performance to demonstrate a broader world of options by sparking imagination and aspiration that will break the circle of economic serfdom and inspire them to seek mobility, education and new levels of personal expression.
  
  Jane Taylor, Andrew W. Mellon Chair of Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance, Convenor of LoKO
  Introduced by Sara Guyer, Professor, Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• 9:30-10:30am | Grow Explorers

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room A

  The panelists will explore the role of Artificial Intelligence in society, and its potential to address global challenges across NYUAD and Global NYU. They will examine both the opportunities and cautionary boundaries of this unstoppable force and technology tool.

  Anthony Tzes, Program Head and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Visiting Professor
  Nizar Habash, Program Head, Computer Science; Associate Professor
  Moderator: Nancy Gleason, Director of the Hillary Balon Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Assistant Professor of Practice, NYU Abu Dhabi

• 11am-12:30pm | KEYNOTE — Grow a Global University

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Lecture Hall
  

  What does it mean to be a truly, global university? Our communities shape in a utopian direction, and a key element of our problem-solving ability is to cross discipline borders and embrace interdisciplinarity. This discussion will touch on why interdisciplinarity matters and what these individuals are seeing across campuses that emboldens this approach.

  Keynote: Katherine E. Fleming, Provost, NYU
  Gene Jarrett, Seryl Kushner Dean, College of Arts and Science, NYU
  Gigi Dopico, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs and for the Humanities, NYU
  Julie Mostov, Dean and Professor of Liberal Studies, NYU
  Joanna Waley-Cohen, Provost, NYU Shanghai
  Pratap Mehta, Professor of Political Science and Former Vice Chancellor, Ashoka University
  Moderator: Carol Brandt, Vice Provost, and Associate Vice Chancellor, Global Education and Outreach, NYU Abu Dhabi
  

• 11am–12pm | Grow Economic Opportunity

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room C

  A panel discussion of sustainable and equitable economic development.
  
  François Bourguignon, Professor Emeritus, EHESS, Paris, and former Chief Economist at the World Bank
  Morgan Hardy, Assistant Professor of Economics
  Moderator: Yaw Nyarko, Professor of Economics, NYU Abu Dhabi

• 11am–12pm | Grow Arts Connectivity

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room B

  A global art history journey to share and discuss the connective tissue of art and art appreciation across cultures and history. 

  Kavita Singh, Dean at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University
  Salwa Mikdadi, Associate Professor Practice of Art History, NYU Abu Dhabi
  Souraya Noujaim, Chief Curator, Louvre Abu Dhabi
  Reindert Falkenburg, Special Academic Advisor; Visiting Professor of Early Modern Art and Culture, NYU Abu Dhabi

• 2–3pm | Grow Cities

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room C

  A panel that will focus on both the technological and social aspects of urban growth, including the opportunities offered by new technologies and the social challenges that growth presents.

  Monica Menendez, Associate Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering and Director of the Research Center for Interacting Urban Networks (CITIES), NYU Abu Dhabi;
  Jeff Bohn, Managing Director, Swiss Re Institute
  Rana Tomaira, Lecturer, NYU Abu Dhabi
  Moderator: Samer Madanat, Dean of Engineering, NYU Abu Dhabi
  

   

• 2–3pm | Grow NYUAD

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Lecture Hall

  Evolution of NYUAD: past, present, and future

  Hafsa Ahmed, President, NYUAD Student Government
  Vongai Christine Mlambo, Vice President, NYUAD Student Government
  Sunil Kumar, Vice Provost of Graduate and Postdoctoral Programs, Global Network Professor of Engineering
  Moderators: Marta Losada, Dean of Science; Professor of Physics, and Bryan Waterman, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Development; Associate Professor of Literature 

   

Open House

Time: 1–4pm

• Grow Artists — Arts Center

  Location: Arts Center (C3)
  

  This open studios tour will demonstrate the breadth of offerings NYUAD has on display to enable artistic experimentation and creation, featuring: Print Studio (printmaking and photography), Recording Studio, Sound Stage, and Woodworking Workshop. See works from some of our leading student artists while having a chance to meet and discuss their journey and perspectives around the creative process.

• Grow Creators — startAD

  Location: Conference Center (A6), startAD Lab

  Let’s bring down the barriers! We’re at a point in human history where for minimal dollars and in minimal time, anyone can create a smart shop in their own home! What does this democratization of technology mean for society and what does it look like? Unleash your creativity with technology. From autonomous cars to facial recognition systems, interact with technology projects made by community members just like you at Al Warsha, the startAD Lab.

• Grow Dreamers — Library, Ballon Center, Akkasah, and Writing Center

  Location: Campus Center (C2), Library
  

  Join the NYUAD librarians on an  intimate and personal exploration of the beating heart of our on campus academic exploration. Get an insider’s look at  special collections, resources, archives and special projects in an environment that embraces an entrepreneurial spirit and start-up mentality in order to forge the dreams of all students and faculty. Unique elements from the library will be introduced allowing for up close and personal interaction with some of the most intriguing pieces of the collection.

• Grow Environmentalists — Plastic Recycling Research Lab

  Location: D2, take the elevator to the basement

  Venture deep into NYUAD to find the not-so-secret yet hidden treasure that is the NYUAD Plastics Lab! Delve into the recycling process taking place right here on campus and participate in sorting—and with goggles firmly in place—shredding! The Plastic Recycling Research Lab was created with the goal of researching long-term solutions to recycling plastic and your visit will help to
  clarify individual and collective impact of plastics use on our world while enabling appreciation and understanding of the scope and challenge of stemming this seemingly unending tide.
  

• Grow a Healthy UAE

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Multipurpose Room B and C
  

  Dr. Raghib Ali and the Public Health Research Center team will take us inside the UAE Healthy Future Study, the first-ever prospective cohort study in the UAE. Established in 2014, the study team of 40 researchers with thousands of local participants at clinics across the UAE are breaking new ground in identifying the risks and causes of disease, influences, and preventative factors that make up the health of the UAE community. This effort drives impact across the country and showcases the power of our collaborative community. This will be a clinical interactive demo where you can experience the participant journey, including having your body composition analyzed, as well as a discussion with clinician partners and study participants.

  Raghib Ali, Director, Public Health Research Center, NYU Abu Dhabi

  

• Grow Heritage — Bronze Age Boat Reconstruction

  Location: Off the East Plaza, on the walkway between C3 and D2

  Using archaeological, historical and ethnographical evidence, university lecturers and students are working hand-in-hand to reconstruct an authentic reed boat—an innovation that in and of itself caused a trade revolution in the Arabian Gulf. By placing themselves ‘in the shoes’ of those who came before, this immersive exercise is allowing the team to greater understand this crucial development in human history in a novel manner. Join us to see our progress and understand what first-hand experience has uncovered. This project is a collaboration between NYU Abu Dhabi and Zayed University.
  

• Grow Research — Experimental Research Building

  Location: Experimental Research Building (C1)
  

  Five of NYUAD’s research labs will open their doors to share their research and its implications and applications in the UAE and beyond.

  The Desplan Lab
  The simple fruit fly it turns out is a prime model for research. Its powerful genetic toolkit has allowed countless discoveries that shaped our knowledge in various fields of Biology. At the Desplan lab, fruit fly experimentation enables the study of other organisms, including the red palm weevil—a pest that attacks 40 palm tree species in the Gulf Region and is responsible for an annual loss of several million dollars. The research aims to gain insight into the red palm weevil brain organization and gene regulation that will aid in directing pest regulation efforts through genetic control.
  - Part of the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology

  The Gunsalus Lab
  Natural products are valuable origins of bioactive drugs and the marine microbial community present in Abu Dhabi is an unexplored natural resource for drug discovery. This is the first academic research group in the Gulf region using High-Throughput (HTP) screening of whole organisms and High-Content Phenotypic profiling (HCP) to identify and characterize bioactive natural products from marine bacteria strains isolated in the Abu Dhabi region. The drug discovery-oriented research in this lab holds great promise for the development of novel therapeutics in the UAE and beyond.
  - Part of the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology

  The Robotics Tzes Lab
  Learn about the Kinesis CTP Laboratory and meet Professor Antonios Tzes, one of the main researchers who will introduce you to his work via two, live experiments involving autonomous drone technologies in the motion capture area and demonstration of the use of robotic arms. These technologies have broad applications across the fields of engineering and science, and these demos will bring you up close to their capabilities.

  The Amber Lab
  To reduce waste, time and labor costs in construction, 3D printing has emerged as a powerful technique that allows superior precision and development of complex architectural features. This technology is being rapidly adopted globally but several challenges must be addressed to assure economic viability. AMBER lab at NYUAD is giving special attention to 3D printing in construction to help UAE firms now and in the future.

  The Electron Microscopy Lab
  The Electron Microscopy Core Facility provides services and tech to investigators across a wide-range of research projects. Experience our state of the art scanning and transmission electron microscopes as well as sample preparation equipment that processes, analyzes and visualizes materials and biological samples.
  

• Grow Thinkers — Engineering Design Studio

  Location: Social Science Building (A5), Design Studio Room 015
  

  Elegant engineering solutions are driven by moving beyond the gizmo and employing critical thinking that starts by asking, “Why?” The Engineering Design Studio supports ambitious student minds whose work moves the needle on social, environmental and scientific impact.  This behind the scenes exploration will enable you to track the journey from theory to prototype to real-world
  application understanding how these students are using engineering technologies to improve our planet. From forward-thinking drone technologies that enable wildlife protection to the development of sustainable, agricultural tourism, this studio prizes the process that allows socially responsible, relevant goals to drive technical outcomes.
  

• Grow Understanding — Experimental Social Science Lab

  Location: Conference Center (A6), Room 013 A & B
  

  Do your facial expressions convey how you truly feel? Is external perception driving reality or the perception of reality? Explore the power of machine cooperation experiments and take part in experimentation that uses facial recognition software to drive a deeper understanding of human behavior. The Social Science Experimental Laboratory (SSEL) at NYU Abu Dhabi is an interdisciplinary center conducting an array of research in the social/cultural sphere. Learn more about what social norms and mores our students are exploring in their projects and sign up to participate for future experiments!