Amal Al Gergawi, an NYU Abu Dhabi Class of 2019 alumna from Dubai, has been selected as a 2026 Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University. She will pursue a PhD in Oceans at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
As the largest fully endowed university-wide graduate program in the world, the Knight-Hennessy provides scholars with a three year fellowship along with the multidisciplinary leadership training needed to tackle complex global challenges head on.
Al Gergawi spent four years as a Kawader Research Fellow at the Burt Marine Biology Lab and has further served as a climate negotiator covering adaptation and ocean mandates for the Office of the UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change.
Read more: Advocating for Marine Conservation as a Kawader Research Fellow
Al Gergawi aspires to enhance the resilience and adaptive capacity of marine ecosystems and the frontline coastal communities that depend on them by blending computational, field and participatory approaches.
“As the climate crisis drives our oceans towards increasingly warm, acidic and volatile states, we are faced with a moral, scientific and economic imperative in understanding how these cascading interdependent changes will alter our marine ecosystems and the millions of people that depend on them as a source of food security, livelihood and well-being,” Al Gergawi says.
Her contributions have earned her several prestigious honors. Al Gergawi is a recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship, the International Union for Conservation of Nature UAE Young Leader Award, and the First-Class Order of Zayed II Presidential Medal.
Al Gergawi forms part of a growing cohort of women advancing coral reef science across the Gulf region.
“I am deeply honored and humbled to have been afforded the opportunity to explore research in this domain with the Oceans Department and to join the vibrant community of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. I carry with me an immense sense of gratitude to every mentor, colleague, and institution whose generosity and guidance have led me here. I look forward to the rich conversations, questions, and research that lie ahead, and to bringing perspectives from the UAE and the broader West Asian and North African region to Stanford.” Al Gergawi says.
