November 10, 2021 / Podcast Episode

Episode 12: Amr El Abbadi

Interview with: Amr El Abbadi. 
Professor of Computer Science at University of California, Santa Barbara. 
IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, AAAS Fellow. 
Immigrant from Egypt (and Lebanon).
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Episode Guide

In this Episode with Amr El Abbadi: Bonus episode from Middle East! A Computer Scientist and History buff! Immigrant in the 1980s! Growing up in Egypt and Lebanon. Growing up amidst multiple wars, occurring every few years. And how it changed him. Growing up in a family filled with famous academics (historians, poets, economists) on both Mom and Dad’s side. History of Egypt and Lebanon interwoven into Amr’s story. Comparing Egypt and Lebanon cultures. And much more!

  • mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
  • 0.00: Voices in this episode
  • 1.52: Orientation to Episode
  • 2.42: Biography
  • Act 1: 4.46: Childhood and Schooling, late 1950s-mid 1970s.
    • 4.25: Taking a train from UK via Paris (and Louvre) to Alexandria.
    • 5.40: Growing up in Alexandria, a multi-cultural city 
    • 6.33: Family of academics on both sides of family, for multiple generations.
      • “My teacher would have been my father’s student.”
    • 9.48 : Was first interested in research, whether in history or STEM didn’t matter! Final year Baccalaureate exam at end of High school: Thanaweya Amma
      • “Egyptian history is multi-faceted”
    • 10.46: Visiting Abu Simbel before the area flooded
    • 11.33: When did the choice of science or engineering come about for him? His schooling background in Egyptian public schools.
  • Act 2: 13.52: The Middle East Culture, and Living amid Wars, 1960s-1970s
    • 13.52: Comparing Lebanon with Egypt. His time in Lebanon (3 years) in the late 1960s, when he was in his teenage years
      • “Many of the students were Palestinians” “The 67 War between Arabs and Israel.”
      • “I remember my parents having students over at my house. It was a period of turmoil and uncertainty. It has affected my outlook on life.” 
      • “Lebanon is so much more open than Egypt.”
    • 17.10: How living through war has affected his outlook in life.
      • “My childhood was affected by several wars.”
      • “All schools except high schools were closed, so I remember going to school in war.”
    • 19.20: Living through war in Lebanon vs. living through war in Egypt
      • “I realized many of my friends in universities were refugees.” 
    • 20.27: Interactions among religions in Lebanon, and in Egypt.
    • 22.51: Preparing for Final year Baccalaureate exam at end of High school: Thanaweya Amma
      • “Egypt was part of Non-Aligned movement. … I personally benefited from it.“
      • Soviet cultural center… they had cheap Math books! And the French cultural center… French classes!”
      • “One advantage of the cold war is that we had all these superpowers trying to attract us.“
  • Act 3: 26.05: Going to University, 1976-81 
    • 26.05: How does one choose a university and a major in Egypt? Pressure to take Medicine (vs. Engineering). Curriculum in University.
    • 27.47: “Computer Science… this really nascent department.” Relatives pressuring him to not do Computer Science
    • 28.40: First computers (IBM 360, PDP-11) and first programming language (Fortran). Punched cards!
    • 30.01: A Computer Science department in Alexandria back in 1976! (When many US universities did not have a CS department!). A unique curriculum.
    • 31.54: Women were 40% of CS students! And they all ended up having successful careers as engineers. 
    • 33.32: Why are there so many women in CS in Arabic countries (compared to the US)? 
      • “US has a macho/hackier-oriented approach to programming”
      • “Computer Programming was viewed as a day job for women… it was societal.”
    • 34.50: Not really doing research in undergraduate
  • Act 4: 35.29: Applying for graduate school, 1981
    • 35.29: Considering next-steps after Bachelors. 1 year as a Teaching Assistant after finishing Bachelors. Then applying for graduate school. Obligatory military service, and getting a waiver as only son.
    • 37.08: Random events influence life choices: a relative visiting from NC State.
      • “I hardly knew anything about the universities in the US.” 
  • Act 5: 39.48: Moving to the US to a small town Ithaca (Cornell University), 1981-87
    • 39.48: Hardest things to adapt to: cold weather! 
    • 40.56: How the small size and diversity of Cornell CS Department helped him grow into research.
      • “Many US universities have lost this (intimate nature)”
    • 42.40: Keeping in touch with parents (who were amidst wars). 
      • “I had to get a shortwave radio with an antenna.”
    • 43.50: Assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981. 
    • 45.01: 1982 War: Lives of his parents (Egyptian academics) in the 1980s wars and later Kuwait (Gulf) War, 1990 onwards. His Dad trying to find his way back from Kuwait, during the war, to Egypt.
    • 48.53: Freedoms in Egypt – has it changed throughout the decades?
      • “I grew up in the 60s so we were very careful of what we said.“
  • Act 6: 50.41: Starting research with no prior research experience, early 1980s
    • 50.41: Starting research at Cornell was a shock! First taste of research in Cornell, early 1980s. 
      • “I did not have the training to do research from my undergraduate.”
    • 54.40: His PhD advisor gave him a lot of freedom, and that helped him train himself to be a future faculty member.
  • Act 7: 55.20: Next career options after PhD, 1987
    • 55.20: Why Returning to Egypt was not an option.
    • 56.32: The CS academic job market in 1987 – what was it like?
    • 57.22: Why wait until 2010s to become a US citizen? “I feel more like a citizen of the world.”
  • Act 8: 58.49: Retrospective and Perspective
    • 58.49: Mentors and role models. Women in his family. “Most of the women were not veiled… that environment was very healthy.”
    • 1.00.36: Dealing with failures and rejections. “Find a positive aspect in the ideas that have been rejected.”
    • 1.02.17: Dealing with Impostor Syndrome. “The others are probably more impostors than you are!… if you dig deeper, they are not that knowledgeable and it’s just a facade. I shouldn’t feel I’m an impostor.”
    • 1.03.23: 2011 Egypt’s Arab/Green Revolution. His thoughts. 
      • “Even though it failed… It gave a lot of hope. ”
      • Egypt is an old country, it has a lot of heritage.”
    • 1.05.40: Speculative question: would growing up in the US have been different?
      • “Maybe I wouldn’t be a Computer Scientist, but I’d be an academic.”
    • 1.07.26: A small story about small Ithaca and Minnesota, and eggplants in cooking.
About the Narrator in this Episode
  • Amr El Abbadi (Wikipedia)
    • Professor of Computer Science at University of California Santa Barbara.
    • ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, AAAS Fellow
    • Leader in Databases field
    • Research areas: fault-tolerant distributed systems and databases, with applications in cloud, social media, biology, networks, digital libraries, and security.
Links
Upcoming Episodes

This is the fourth episode of a 4-episode segment featuring prominent and distinguished Entrepreneurial+Academic Computer Scientists all of whom immigrated from Middle East.

We also recommend you listen to the Lead Episode for Middle East Entrepreneurs (Episode 9), the interview with Soodeh Farokhi (Episode 10), and the interview with Fadel Adib (Episode 11). Stay tuned as we visit renowned Immigrant Computer Scientists other parts of the world!

  • Credits
    • Music Credits for Podcast
    • The caption picture at top of page was taken at Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Pic taken by Indy Gupta. 
The Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast is available for free on your favorite devices & apps: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and many more!
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indygupta Written by:

Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign