Bulletin - American University of Beirut

Baalbaki: "To stand out from among 200 applicants was no easy feat."
New Faculty Profiles
economics , and politics.”
“Attracting and retaining the best talent is a big
priority for BCG in the region,” Vathje added. “AUB
is a huge part of this endeavor and is our number
one recruiting pool in the region with around one in
ten of our consulting staff being AUB alumni.”
Student Najla Khatib said that the competition
itself was a valuable learning experience. “I learned
a lot throughout the process,” she said,” because
once I applied for the award, I felt responsible to
live up to much higher standards of leadership in
everything I did.”
Khatib also pointed out that the competition
offers students a valuable opportunity to connect
with a leading job recruiter, irrespective of whether
they win or not.
“Winning this award is an amazing honor. It
really changed me and opened up so many new
opportunities,” she said.
Darius Martin
A random course of fortuitous events led assistant professor
Darius Martin to AUB’s economics department, and he
is pleased with the move. “AUB is the best university in
the region, and I like Beirut, a charming city that has a
European feel; also its climate reminds me of California,”
said Martin.
A dedicated former runner, who completed two marathons
(New York 2003 and Lausanne 2005), Martin fills his
days with extracurricular activities. “I joined a chess club
at the Arab University and have taken up scuba diving;
recently I got my PADI [open water] license at the marina,”
said Martin, who also goes hiking and listens to Icelandic
transcendental music.
With a Persian mother, many years in the Hague, and a
two-year work experience in Iceland, Martin enjoys enhancing
his multi-cultural exposure by attempting to learn new
languages. He speaks Persian and Dutch “poorly,” but in
Icelandic he can certainly “conduct daily business,” having
taught at both Reykjavik University and rural Iceland’s
Bifröst University. Now he is learning Arabic.
Martin first joined Syracuse University in New York as
a student of philosophy, but an elective macroeconomics
course soon changed his path. He “loved the precision” and
enjoyed the logic behind the study of economics so much
that he not only completed a BS
in the subject but also moved on
to earn a PhD from the University
of California.
A macroeconomist with
strong interests in inequality,
business cycle theory, and minimum
wage legislation, Martin is working on an analysis of
fluctuations in US labor supply in the short and long run.
The fact that the labor market responds differently to growth
in national income in the long-term than it does in the
short-term is a puzzle worth examining, explains Martin.
The young professor is currently teaching macroeconomics
to undergraduates, but in fall 2009-10, he also gave
a graduate course in financial economics. He is glad to deal
with “some really good and academically competitive AUB
students, who are strong in mathematics and comfortable
with calculus.” However, there is room for improvements in
some disciplinary issues such as “talking during lectures
and cheating,” according to Martin.
A persistent optimist, Martin argues that “technological
development is a much bigger force than resource depletion.”
In other words, Martin believes that future generations
would be better off despite the scarcity of resources.
Nadine Sahyoun
Dr. Fadi Maalouf
Having lived close to the sea in Alexandria and Boston,
Associate Professor Nadine Sahyoun is happy to live near
a body of water again. Missing the Middle-East, she loves
to come back every few years to “enjoy the food and the
Mediterranean air.” She is currently at AUB’s Department
of Nutrition and Food Science as a Fulbright Scholar on
sabbatical from the University of Maryland.
While working on her PhD in nutritional science at Tufts
University in 1991, Sahyoun took off for a year in Iraq as a
public health specialist, an experience she considers one of
the most fulfilling of her professional career. “It was highly
gratifying to feel that I contributed in establishing health
care relief programs all over the country,” she explained.
Although her bachelor’s degree was in biology from
the University of Massachusetts, Sahyoun was attracted to
the interactive science-based aspect of nutrition when she
took two courses on the subject at AUB while working as
lab technician and instructor at AUBMC between 1974 and
1977. In 1979 she obtained her MS in nutrition from the
University of Iowa.
At the University of Maryland, Sahyoun focuses on the
relationship between diet, genetics, and environmental risk
factors as well as their impact
on nutritional status and on
the development of chronic
disease and mortality.
This year her research
relates the dietary patterns
of older Lebanese people to their health status in order
to make recommendations and/or implement interventions.
She is also assessing the food security of segments of the
Lebanese population.
During the fall, Sahyoun gave several lectures to AUB
students, whom she finds “enthusiastic, energetic, and interactive.”
As well as mentoring a master’s student, Sahyoun
is currently leading a graduate seminar and co-teaching a
graduate course on community nutrition.
Sahyoun is married and has a twelve-year-old daughter.
She enjoys hiking, planting trees, and walking by the
sea. For her, Beirut is “wonderful for walking,” but she also
likes playing tennis and swimming. Indoors, she listens to
jazz and reads fiction and psychological thrillers, and is an
advocate of “moderation, balance, and variety.”
Combining academic work with the practice of child psychiatry
requires many interests and competencies, possessed
in large number by Assistant Professor Fadi Maalouf, who
is “doubly happy” about having joined the Department of
Psychiatry at AUBMC in September 2009. “It is good professionally
and important for my two children to connect with
their extended family here,” said Maalouf.
High-school fascination with the science of biology motivated
Maalouf to become a medical student, and interaction
with younger teenagers as a summer camp counselor and
later as a biology teacher while still a student himself, directed
Maalouf to specialize in psychiatry for that age-group.
“Adolescent years provide a great window of risk and
opportunity for intervention; teenagers have capabilities but
lag behind adults in cognitive controls over their brains.
Especially when struggling with belonging and identity and
in the absence of adequate family support, depressioninduced
behavior can lead to negative long-term consequences,”
explained Maalouf.
In addition to practicing, teaching, and supervising,
Maalouf is conducting research on brain functions of depressed
Lebanese adolescents, including those with suicidal
thoughts. He will be analyzing responses to currently available
treatment.
Noting US findings that “by
the end of adolescence, one-infive
[teens] will have experienced
a depressive incident,” Maalouf
mentioned being “struck by
the protective factors against suicidal attempts among
depressed teens in Lebanon: namely family support and
religious mindfulness.”
To unwind, Maalouf enjoys spending time with his family,
playing soccer with his son, and going on long road trips
to rediscover Lebanon. He listens to jazz and main-stream
music, and reads Amin Maalouf, but only on plane trips.
After receiving his MD from AUB in 2001 Maalouf did
his internship at AUBMC. He then completed a three-year
residency in psychiatry and a two-year fellowship in child
and adolescent psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr.
Maalouf then served the University of Pittsburgh as assistant
professor of psychiatry from 2007 to 2009 and has held
an adjunct appointment there since July 2009. He is the
recipient of several awards including a 2007 Outstanding
Resident Award from the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry and a 2009 Young Investigator grant
award from the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention.
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