SPEAKER_00 0:00

You are listening to Global Serving Podcast. Our guest today is an aspiring role model with ambition and brilliance of young researchers on the global scientific stage. Dr. Noura Said is a planetary scientist with a PhD in astrophysical and planetary focus. Dr. Noura, I'm very pleased to have you with us in the Global Southing podcast. And let me admit here that I'm very proud of having you as a young lady who has been a scientist emerging from the Global South. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Najla. It's a pleasure to be here, and it's my honor. Thank you. Let me start with this personal question. Whenever you just walk into your office, surrounded by all of this kind of different data, working with um mission stations, let's say, entering into labs, uh getting into the into the technicality of things that are very complex. How does it feel?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Honestly, it feels like every other job, I believe. I guess. Because being a scientist is a lot of thinking. And genuinely, one of the skills that you learn as a PhD student in this field of science is how to think critically in order to do better science. So it feels like any other job, but it hurts more because there's a lot of thinking. Um and and uh it's it's um never boring, at least I can say that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

But are we um looking at the future? You think you are thinking of the future during your daily work, or it's more of that we are reflecting on our ancient past?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Honestly, it's a mixture of both. Um, it depends on the field of science, but specifically the field that I'm in, which is astrophysics, planetary science. I mean, it's the very definition of looking into the past to understand the future. Um, but that's that's just giant science in general. It's all about looking at patterns in the past in order to better predict the future. That's what a good scientist should be able to do and are trying to do, and also trying to make sense of what we see around us in the world. Um, so um it's it's a good mixture of both, and I think uh it's uh being a good scientist is being a good balance of doing both things simultaneously.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

For a long time we have been viewed, especially in the global south, um, in terms of production of science and like scientific work. We have been viewed as more of like consumers of scientific research. But I mean, right now, definitely with having uh people and experts, um, including yourself, the the concept should be changing, the view should be changing. That has been associated with us for a long time. So, to what extent do you find that the landscape is right now is changed, has been changed within the global south?

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Um, honestly, the idea of uh producers versus consumers of science is it it tracks really well with the timing of when political powers are, you know, um at play. What political powers are at play? And I mean, for the longest time, this region, this part of the world, was producing a lot of science. Some of the greatest scientists of the world come from India, from China, from parts of Persia in the Middle East, you know, historically speaking. Um, and they still continue to produce a lot of science. It's just that the idea of modern science was developed mostly in the West. And so that's why it seems that there's this heavier weight towards that. Um, but all of science builds upon each other, and you wouldn't be able to do what you're doing now with modern science without all of these contributions. Um, and so I never really thought of it as being that production of science stopped per se in the global south. It's just that it's overshadowed overshadowed by more emphasis and focus on the modern scientific discoveries that happened to be when Europe was flourishing in the modern era.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yeah. What about like being a little bit slowed down during certain era, especially with the um dynamic changes happening here uh within the Middle East, Latin America, Africa? So definitely this will lead to a slowdown to different sectors, different um industries, including the the production of scientific research research.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

That's a really good point. And it's very true that when your community and when your economy is focused on tackling natural disasters or wars or um other financial crises that are inflicted, you know, upon you. Um and you don't really have the the leisure or the luxury of doing science. One of one of my colleagues actually um I'm an idealist and he's a pragmatist, and we had this conversation where I was talking about how much we need to focus more on science, and he said science is a luxury that happens when things are stable, and when countries are not stable enough, they can't have the luxury of doing science, and it made me really, you know, change my perspective a bit about how how I advocate for science and that it has its time when it becomes more of a focus. Um, and you're right in the global south, because of a mixture of reasons, depending on which parts of the global south we're talking about, but primarily it's either poverty or subjugation or um wars and focusing on the neighbors or focusing on um some of the the issues that plague humanity. Um you don't have time to do um a lot of good science that's just for the sake of science. You're focusing on science that's solving your problems. For your survival, for your survival.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

And this is a point that the audience can also um elaborate and share their comments and perspectives. And that do you think science is meant, as Dr. Nora said, uh, only for science as a sort of like a luxury, or it could be also helpful for our survival, even if we have problems, still we maintain the work um and the scientific research to keep it at least ongoing.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah, yeah, of course. It's there's still science even during times of need, it's just very focused and yeah, it's not explorative science. It's not you're not sending a mission to Mars when your country is focusing on you know solving some of the more survival survival uh needs exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah. But I'm sure, Dictor Nora, that there is a certain moment in which we realize that we have to turn our uh perspective, our mindset uh not to be limited to the earth in which we on which we we we live, but rather we look at the space, we start to um looking at the stars to at least find um great potential for us to develop, even if we are located here on this planet.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Um it's honestly always that we've looked up towards the stars to find answers. I think there's an innate thing within us humans to to seek meaning in things larger than ourselves. Um, and I mean it started off as a need thing, which we were talking about earlier. Um, humans needed the stars literally for guidance, not not in the sense of spiritual guidance, but in terms of navigation, navigating the sea and things like that. Um, but then they derived more meaning, you know, with the development of things like the the zodiac signs and and um ascribing meaning to the positions of the stars and the planets and things like that. So there's always been something in us that looked towards the heavens, as they call it, um, for something. And I'm not sure when it was that we started looking towards the heavens or the stars and the sky for technological progress or or more of like um kind of developmental thing. Um, I don't think it ever started that way. I think it it in its nature it was purely exploration-based. It was like, can we do it? It's it's a it's a curiosity that drove us to get there. And that curiosity was always around. It's just that there are certain periods of time where that curiosity had a time to flourish. And the best way to get it to flourish, honestly, is when there's kind of like a competition of some sort. So this is the Cold War, for example, is a great time for the space race. And the space race. Yeah, the space race was born out of uh out of you know this um geopolitical competition on global level. Exactly, exactly. But I mean uh why was it exciting for people? Because it's we're curious. You you look up and and it's there's this innate curiosity that you have about it. So the the deep in on a deep level, it's really just curiosity. We're explorative, humans are explored exploratory by nature. Um, that's why we sail beyond the seas and we go to new um areas all the time. But um I think there are certain moments where the geopolitics lines up so that enough money can be uh put towards answering this question and then you you actually are able to reach space and to develop the technologies to get you there.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Okay, you mentioned the uh space race between US and USSR a few a few decades ago, but now with the emergence of middle powers, including the United Arab Emirates, you are an IRATI scientist, uh do you think the middle powers um have the potential to be joining not necessarily that space race, but at least uh the space exploration, especially if they don't really have the full infrastructure or the or at least they they are not really reaching the development level. Um but can we prioritize scientific research and the space exploration, even if we are middle powers?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah, absolutely. There is a huge benefit to doing it in terms of um the economics of your country as well. So it's not just a it looks good kind of move, but it's also a really good way to invigorate so many subsectors within a country. So uh space and space sciences, space exploration is by its very nature a very multidisciplinary um uh topic. It's a mul it it involves comms and communications and and sending um you know satellites, so manufacturing, engineering. It involves uh uh having to have a really good software infrastructure as well. And you have to have people who understand geology and uh space sciences and physics and math and engineering and all of these different components. And that's a really good way to to really develop multiple sectors, you know, by having one goal of sending something to space. You're you're developing so many sectors in in the country, so it has its advantages even beyond just being um, you know, something that looks good or is is a cool thing to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

For the global reputation, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Because of course, that element is is there, is there, it's we can't deny that. Um, but there's another aspect of this, which is that it's a very um collaborative approach to doing business with the world. Going to space, you're not gonna do that on your own. Um, there's no I can almost guarantee this, but I'm not entirely sure. But there's no single national space agency in anywhere in the world that does everything in-house. They almost all use subcontractors of some sort or collaborations. Space by its very nature is very, very collaborative. It requires experts in so many different fields, so it brings in experts. Exactly. It brings in experts from so many different fields to come together. And these experts happen to be in many different countries, and so you end up having international collaborations in space sciences or in space missions in a in an unprecedented manner with other project like national projects, um, for example. So I think it's a really good collaborative um environment for nations to interact, which uh which the UAE is excellent at. It's really good at defining and finding projects in which there is international collaboration and international um uh conversations happening.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Let's zoom in and out um in terms of the professional uh aspect of scientific work and scientific research, especially when it's focused towards the space. What do you do as a scientist? As a person. What sort of decode the the profession? Because for us, you know, uh, whenever we hear that this person is a scientist, the first thing we would think is like, wow, I'm sure he or she has a brilliant mind. Which I mean, you are. Thank you. But what do you do as a scientist? Let's decode it a little bit for the audience.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

You used a really good word there. Coding is actually what I do for the most part. Genuinely, it's a lot of uh coding, but honestly, that's just a tool towards doing science. Um, so okay. There's so many different ways to answer this, but I'm gonna I'm gonna answer it in a way that I hope brings it a bit closer to to your mind on on what it really means on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Or maybe attract more people from the audience to become scientists.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Perhaps, perhaps it might actually make them uh shy away from it. I don't know which way this is gonna go. Um so okay, on a day-to-day basis, a lot of it is like I said, thinking. But but um human intelligence, you yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's a lot of um combining uh stuff that I've already built up my knowledge on in the past with new problems. So um let's say on a day where I'm focused purely on the Emirates Mars mission and working on the data from that mission, I'm downloading the data uh which a whole group of scientists have worked to collect and and put neatly in in in a in a very organized, readable. Exactly, exactly. Um, and then I I use that data. I I have to like use Python or whatever your favorite coding language is, um, to parse it out to then understand the data. So it's really my job for the most part as a planetary scientist, because I'm not a theoretical scientist, which is a whole different ballgame, um, is data analysis. So I take that huge subset of data with thousands and thousands of entries, and I try to make sense of it and try to understand what it is that our satellite is actually measuring around Mars. Um, mainly I'm focused on like the three main questions that our mission is focused on, which is trying to understand how the atmosphere of Mars behaves on a seasonal level, on a day-to-day level. How, for example, does the dust storm uh that we see with our images of Mars, how does that affect other parts of the Martian atmosphere, how it can potentially affect things on the surface, like the rovers, things like that. Uh, understanding um things like uh what is the H2O content, how much water there is in the atmosphere. It's not liquid water, just to be clear. So people don't get excited. It's it's water ice. We're trying to imagine where we are talking. Yeah, yeah, it's water ice. So, for example, um, my thesis when I was in in my um doing my PhD was building a code to understand the seven years of data from a different mission, the NASA mission. Um, how every single Mars winter, how much snow happens on this the polar regions of Mars? You might be thinking about water ice snow, which is what we're used to. On Mars, the temperature is so cold that it's actually CO2 ice snow, dry ice. That's what's actually snowing out in the polar regions of Mars. And my job was to download seven years of data, which is already like a year's worth of work to try to parse through that, and then try to make um uh a model on the computer that is able to uh track the contents that we get into uh something we understand. Like, hey, look at this plot that shows how much snow occurred every day for the past seven years, and there's trends that pop up, and now I can understand. Snowdowns and fluctuations. Exactly. And then you go and you're like, oh, there's this weird thing that happened over here. I wonder what caused that. And then like, uh, I think maybe there's something happening with the sun. So I go to the sun scientist database, which is not a examining this hypothesis. Yeah, and like neither are you maybe basically that's pretty much what what we do. We we look up, we look at the data that we have, we find trends in it, we try to explain what's causing these trends. Usually it involves looking at other data sets and so on. So that's a lot of data analysis. But then that's I would say at this stage of my career, only 30 to 40 percent of what I do, a lot of it is is honestly like managing science and writing papers and uh going to conferences and presenting this work, uh, working with other science science teams on collaborative projects, sharing data, uh, managing science teams so that we're all aligned on the same goals for the mission, for example, um, working with universities. Um, I have a lot of meetings with university, with university professors where we have a research grant that we've given them, and then there's updates from the projects that they do. It's it's a lot of different elements, just like any job, really. There's not really one set thing that you do. Um, but the scientist part, the cool part, the fun part is what's the unique one. Yeah, is what I described.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Is that what about being a female scientist? Um, I mean, I don't want to be biased, but I mean, for a long time we have been associating scientists with, you know, male faces. Yeah, yeah. Even for having astronauts, it's something I mean, in you, it could be new for us to have female astronauts.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, I mean, we have uh Mashallah Aleha, uh astronaut Noura. Yeah, same name, not the same person, um, who's who's part of the four astronauts that are um training, two that are training, two that have already gone to space, um, training to be uh part of the next mission. She's very young, mashallah. Um so uh the the idea of having male versus female astronauts, honestly, the job job of an astronaut is very different from a job of a scientist. It's like you have to be military and you have to be physically fit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you have to be physically fit, you have to be able to be a pilot and and have to have like uh medical knowledge to do like emergency stuff, you have to have enough knowledge to do scientific experiments with the help of scientists down on the ground. You have to be an engineer to fix things when so it's very multifaceted, um, but it's not really like um a science, it's not very science-heavy, it's more like physical, physical and and and mentally like you have to be very mentally strong. I don't know if I'd be able to be a good scientist because you'd have to be very mentally solid to be able to work under pressure, things like that. So, so uh for me an astronaut is is more of like a really cool explorer that is very brave and able to do things that at function at a high level under really extreme circumstances. Um, whereas Nehna scientists were able to just stay on our own, like in our own little room, working on our laptop and our comfy little No pressure from the outside. The only pressure is coming from within. So yeah. But to answer your question about female science. Female scientists and women and science in general. I mean, you do the same work um as as any scientist. So it doesn't really change the nature of the job at all. Um, but it the the environment and how it treats you is different. Um, I didn't notice it until I went to the US to study. Um, so I I did my bachelor's in the UAE. Um, I got my degree in mathematics, and then I went to the US uh to do kind of the doctorate program, which is a master's and a PhD combined um in astrophysics and planetary science. And when I got there, that's when I realized that the science fields are dominated by men in the universities. Um, because what I grew up being used to is that all of the science fields in the universities here in the UAE are mostly women. Um, the biology section of any typical Emirati university is full of women. The the math, the physics, it's it's a lot of women in these in these fields. So um we actually kind of had this weird thing. It still has roots in patriarchal reasonings because uh science was seen as something that's not utilitarian. Yeah. Uh whereas men here were encouraged to go into like engineering and military and and business and things like that, and and the sciences, you can leave those to the women. So it it's not exactly like an empowering reason, but it ended up being a really empowering thing that we as the UAE kind of shifted towards that that mindset of you know, going from tribalism to a more modern um mindset. It's it's something that we capitalized on and supported even more. And we saw that this is working. And we I remember um Her Excellency uh Sarah Emiri, she was talking about the difficulty of recruiting more men to join the science teams because there were so there were there were so many women. The women, um the science team of the Emirates Moore's mission, when it launched, so this was in 2020, was I think I don't know the percentage, but it there was only one guy and many women. There was only one man and many women on the science team. So just to show you how much of a difference there is um growing up in the Middle East, at least, and and having that difference in women and science uh over here.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

So I'm glad that you uh brought this comparison between um the science work and the the percentage of of ladies versus you know uh men within the uh the scientific work uh between the let's say the Middle East or the Global South, or at least the the example of the UAE, and when when you traveled pursuing your PhD in the West, and that it was more of like men-led area. Yeah, um, this this will bring a lot when it comes to the global uh work on scientific research, and that no, there are different realities that could be emerging from the global south and changing the whole landscape um over the whole globe. Um you mentioned the Mars mission. I remember when it was announced, um, I think it was six years before the initial launch of the 2014-2015. Exactly. Yeah. Um I think the the whole world was a little bit, you know, uh critical of the timeline. Skeptical. How could a country, a small country, um have this big and huge ambition without really having the proper infrastructure? We are not speaking about the earth, it's the space, putting all of this money, efforts, human resources is so confident that they will do it within six years. Yeah. You were part of it.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

I was, I was a scholar um sponsored by the mission to do my studies. So I was actually in my undergraduate degree at that time.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

So tell us about it. How was the experience then?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

So I had the privilege of being involved honestly as someone kind of looking in because I was still an undergraduate student. Um, I worked with the researchers um every summer uh of my undergraduate degree until I graduated, and then I applied to do my PhD um in this topic, and there were no PhD degrees.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

That's at the time.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

At the time, honestly, the the we knew it was an ambitious mission. That's the whole point. So um the leadership here looks at the other the the mistakes of others and the lessons, good lessons from other countries. Benchmarks. Benchmarks, thank you. Um, and one of the things that was really great for the West was how much went into the Apollo missions, for example, and the space race at that time period, even though at the time they didn't have the technology to go to space yet, they put in a lot of uh you know investment into it. And if you go around to American universities, European universities, and ask the professors that are right now working there and ask them what it was it that inspired you to become a professor or a scientist in this field, so many of them will say it was Apollo missions. It's when we landed on the moon. It's when when this happened, it's when Yuri Gagarin went to space. So it was a historical moment inspiring them too. The inspiration of these missions is what drives these countries to then it naturally happens because you get to the people. The people then naturally, you know, become interested in these fields. It suddenly becomes something that you don't have to convince, you know, Baba or Mama, like, I really want to study this, because the country is rooting for this. The country is sending a mission to Mars. So yeah, you can study this. You don't have to convince them, like, please, I really want to study this thing. And they're like, no, focus only on being a doctor, Ma'ashu. No. Now, you know, the parents are like, oh, you know, Sheikh Zayed was interested in space, and and our leadership is interested in space. So it becomes something that the community and the people of the country are interested in, and then you start building up the talent. So we knew going in that it was ambitious, and that was the point. It's was to inspire not only the UAE but the region to be to become a source of hope for I mean that's why they named it the hope probe. Um, so that's that that was part of the design. And and we weren't starting from scratch. That's the thing. Um, the nice thing about the space sector is that we build upon each other's work. Um, that's how science works too. And we we didn't have to start from scratch. You know, there was uh years and years of great work that was done in Russia, that was done in the US, that was done in Europe, um, that was done in India too, that we just had to, you know, learn from them and build upon what they were doing. So there was a lot of knowledge exchange programs that we set up with universities abroad, um, where we I was one of the scholars students that they sent to do, you know, a PhD to learn and then bring that back here. So there was uh an intent behind it being kind of inconceivably short of amount of time. Um but that pressure is what makes it what's make makes it work, makes it bring the most benefit.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Yeah, yeah. While you are talking, I was just thinking that you are very right in that it wasn't about the mission itself into going into Mars, as much as a whole inspiration, awareness, maybe a new chapter for the people here in in the UAE and in the region for the parents as well. You are very true in that I just noticed that I decorated my child, my only child room with astronauts, you know, decoration, colors, space, moon. I just noticed that I've done it during the like the Jordi. Although I have nothing to do with the space, yeah. But you are very right. It's it was about the inspiration that we internalized as people as well, even we are not necessarily scientists. Yeah, yeah. It works.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

And this will continue. It will, and we have a new mission coming up as well to the asteroid belt that's even more of an ambition because it's gonna do something no other mission has done before, which is tour of uh the the main asteroid belt and visit seven different asteroids, and that's gonna be really exciting too. And again, it's we could have gone for another easy mission. And no mission is really easy, so that's a misnomer there. But I mean, we could have done something a bit more comfortable, like another Mars mission or something else, but instead we wanted to do something challenging because it's the only way we're gonna grow the capabilities within the country. So um, I didn't mention this before, but part of the reason why we were on a shorter timeline is because we wanted to make sure that it wasn't so long that you'd grow kind of lax and comfortable, but it was short enough that it's still feasible. Yeah. And a lot of the reason why other missions in other places take so long is because there's so much bureaucracy. And we were fresh, we were starting from scratch in terms of the bureaucracy of space, uh, the space sector in the UAE. So we didn't have to worry about that. We didn't have to deal with that. We had, you know, a streamlined process for that part of it. And so, you know, you could cut down a few of the years, years over there. But the main purpose was to build the capabilities both by giving the challenge and then also by inspiring the nation and the country and the people within it.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

I'm quite sure, Dictar Nyora, that I mean, your experience and the journey that you have been through has been inspiring the audience listening to us. I'm sure that there are many people who are aiming to join the scientific research, joining the different missions in a space. Maybe they are trying to uh get the the needed studies at a university, whether it's mm mathematics, physics, um, engineering with different perspectives. But at the end of the day, there is sort of the post graduation leak. So, how can we address this? The the leaky pipeline.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah, it is indeed a leaky pipeline. Um, yeah, so so what you're talking about is the the fact that after people get their bachelor's degree, they usually don't go into science, even if they had a degree in a scientific field. Um, and honestly, it's not easy to really convince someone to continue in science because the environment right now in science is not set up in a way that's very enticing for scientists. Um there's something happening honestly on a global scale, and then there's something that's happening on a regional like base. I don't know if it's a global south thing. I think it might be. It's definitely a UAE and Middle East thing. Um, so I'll start with the first thing, which is the global aspect. So the global aspect is that science has become kind of saturated, and that there's more people that want to do science than there are jobs available in science. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

And so you So there is a match between the demand for the study and the supply of the jobs in the market. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, there's a mismatch, and so naturally not everyone is going to be able to get a job in science. There's um a reason why there's not that many jobs in science, because usually, like I said, people don't tend to want to, you know, spend so much like governments and and people with money don't want to spend their money on things that don't have like a high ROI, which science you you can't really tell whether it's gonna be something that's revolutionary or not. Real or not. Yeah, and you have to you you have to like cast a wide net in order to understand or in order to find something that ends up becoming lucrative. And most scientists don't do science for the purpose of being lucrative, they do it for the purpose of exploring, and there's value in that. But like I said, too many applicants, not enough jobs. And so what ends up happening is that you already, as a baseline, aren't going to be able to support everyone, but then the available jobs are highly competitive, and there are these metrics that now people have to use in order to, you know, parse through the job candidates and the applications they get. And so they introduce all these metrics over the years, and now the metrics become the job. And so being a scientist has stopped being about being, you know, exploratory, doing science for the sake of science, you know, chasing ideas and solving them and understanding the world. It stopped being about that and started being more about publishing this many papers per quarter or per year, and having this many students and this many citations. And so the joy of science is no longer there. And so and it's extremely difficult to compete in that environment, to be to be at a position that you're doing science, you're you're also expected to teach students. And so teaching four classes per semester, doing a research project at the same time, managing a lab with three or four individuals in it, and excelling at all of these things while publishing papers at a very steady pace. While enjoying and having a life, that's become like it's become really impossible idea and very stressful. And so I don't blame anyone for not continuing down that line once they're done with their you know bachelor's degrees like okay, that was fun. I'm not gonna continue continue doing this for the rest of my life with very little pay, because globally speaking, professors don't get a lot of money, research scientists do not get a lot of money. Um, they're there, it's not a very like high-paying job. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's way better than than a lot of other jobs in the world, and it's a very privileged position to be in. But the amount of expectations and and mental workload and actual physical workload compared to the pay is not very enticing. So, so a lot of people don't don't want to do that, and I don't blame them. Um, the other side of it is the regional aspect of things, and and there's um I mentioned to you there's a lot more women in science here than there are men, and there's an expectation to get a degree, and then you're expected to really mostly spend your time if you do have a job. It's a job where it's easy to also take care of a child as at the same time, or you're not really encouraged to do things that will take away a lot of your time because you're still you still have a role in the household, um, whatever that role is, um taking care of the kids, you know, being a housewife, things like that. Even if you also have a an actual job um on the side, you're expected to do a lot of these things. And so at least I know from some of my friendships that that's a struggle to try to balance. And so, given the nature of what it's like being a scientist, uh mostly you have to be in academia. In academia, you have to spend 110% of your energy in the workspace, and you can't really balance that with the expectations of society in this region, maybe maybe in the world, honestly. People learned a lot from COVID, for example. Um, so that's that's another added layer.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Final advice is to enhance the local capacity um and the mindset within the global south to at least have more of like an advocacy towards joining the scientific work and maybe generation of scientists from the global south to the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

I mean, I don't think I really need to inspire anyone to join science because everyone's curious by nature. When I talk to you about space stuff, I could see your eyes lit up like you were like nodding. And when I talk to anyone about you know the stars and the galaxies and what I learned, they get excited about it. So I don't think that there is an issue of inspiring people to be interested in the topic. That's there. We all have that curiosity. Some of us suppress it, some of us indulge in it, whatever. That's there. I think mainly what we need to do is build the right infrastructure for that to thrive so that people choose to do this over doing others, other things, you know. I know too many students of mine and uh of colleagues of mine who uh were at the precipice where they could have continued to do their PhD or they could have gotten a they got a job offer from, you know, an oil company or something like that. And for them, you know, especially the men, they're like, I want to be financially independent and continuing my studies is not the way to do that. So I'm gonna accept the job offer. So they they rejected the PhD um uh acceptance letter. That's happened three times so far. And I haven't been, I'm an early career scientist who doesn't have a lot of students, and like three of my students have chosen to go into um workforce because it's more lucrative and it's an expectation, especially the men that they have social expectations surrounding them. Exactly, that they have to provide for their family. So one way to do it is to make it so that you're enticing people to choose to do science by you know providing scholarships or or uh stipend for doing research. Um, most most PhDs in sciences you don't pay the university, the university pays you to do it, but the pay is very little. So it's really hard to like compete with with the the you know the tech sector, for example, which is where most of my students ended up. But and best of luck to them. I love you. But uh what I um think needs to change is is how the people, the the country, the government, the people in these positions of influence support the growth of these sectors. If they channel the energy towards it, then it will thrive. Just like what's with happening with AI right now, we've channeled a lot of resources and energy and and attention from the government, from people who have a lot of money, people with influence. And so that the people doing research in AI are thriving. But in other areas where there isn't that attention, it's not gonna happen. I know one person who uh their entire cancer research lab is purely supported by, you know, a rich person whose you know mother passed away from cancer, and so they they they wanted to donate their money towards us. So I think honestly, I think what I'm suggesting is that we go back to the old days of patronage-based science. Um, that's what uh Harun Rashid did. Um there's uh a lot of a lot of our the best science has come from a time where the science and the scientists were supported by external funds to do science policies. Yeah, yeah. So I think we have to go back to like a patronage style um support for science.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah. Dictor Noura, once again, I'm so proud of you to be part of this conversation and Global Southing podcast. And I enjoyed the conversation, and now I can relate to space and scientific work, even I'm outside the field. Thank you so much for being with us. Of course, thank you so much for having me. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, and don't forget, as usual, to follow and subscribe and share this conversation with others. Until next time, thank you so much. You are listening to Global Serving Podcast.