Engineering students among WSU Cairo delegation
Chemical engineering sophomore Mary Savalle is cherishing her recent trip to Egypt for the people she met and the places in Cairo she managed to see. But being a presenter at the 8th biannual International Conference on Energy and Environment wasn't too shabby either.
Savalle and senior Mark Hanna were the youngest members of the Wayne State University delegation, which included WSU President Irvin Reid, Associate Vice President for Global Affairs Dallas Kenney, and Interim Dean Ralph Kummler.
The two undergrads teamed up on a presentation on the U.S. Solar Car Challenge attended by about 20 conference participants, including some of Egypt's leading scientists. Kummler and Gerald Thompkins, assistant dean of engineering, chose them to join the delegation because of their position as leaders on the WSU Solar Car team.
"When they asked me, I thought they were asking the wrong person," says Savalle. As far as the presentation itself, she was not nervous, she says. She has made it many times to many different groups.
Savalle, Hanna, and Micea Teodorescu, a mechanical engineering graduate student, spent most of their time in Egypt attending Conference workshops. The Conference was held January 2 to 9 at the Cairo Hilton on the Nile's east bank.
But Savalle did manage to leave the hotel and get to some regular Cairo tourist stops - the Great Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum and the Khan al-Khalili , Cairo's 14th Century great bazaar.
Meeting Egyptian people proved the most interesting part of the trip, Savalle says. The Egyptian family of a classmate met her on several occasions. One night they took her to the Cairo Military Club for dinner where only Egyptian citizens are supposed to dine. Another evening, she took a taxicab with Teodorescu to the great bazaar where they got lost for a short time in the labyrinth of small shops and alleyways before emerging opposite the Al-Azhar Mosque.
Her short visit to the Great Pyramids only fueled her travel bug. "We only spent 20 minutes there," Savalle says. "I plan to spend a lot more time when I return; ride a camel around the Pyramid," she adds.
Savalle would like to use her future career in engineering as a way to travel. "I've been thinking about the Navy Civil Engineering Corp. or the CIA. "I know I want to travel just based on where I've been and the relationships I've made."