Involvement in the RCE will be primarily through Fellowships. Each year, the RCE plans to award fellowships to 2 students. Details on how to apply for such fellowships will be determined as the RCE grows.
2023-2024 Fellows
Halima Salah
Halima Salah, a Somali-Canadian PhD candidate in Civil Engineering at Wayne State University, earned her BSc in Civil Engineering with a minor in Environmental and Water Engineering from the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in 2017. She obtained her M.S. in Civil Engineering from Wayne State University in 2021. Before graduate school, her undergraduate and professional experiences spanned the Water Resources and Wastewater Treatment fields in the U.S., UAE, and Qatar.
She was awarded the 2021-2022 NSF-NRT Transformative Research in Urban Sustainability Training (T-RUST) fellowship at Wayne State University and co-led the seminar-course titled “Emerging Hazards associated with Climate Change” (ESG 5620/BIO 5060). Through T-RUST, her research delves into the interactive effects of air pollution and heat islands on urban agriculture yield and metal concentrations.
In 2022-2023, Halima became the Ralph Cicerone Fellow in Earth System Science Modeling at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)’s Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling (ACOM) lab. Currently, she serves as a research assistant at the Huang Research Lab, focusing on research involving the intercomparisons of commonly used emissions inventories.
Mohamed Dabaja
Growing up in Metro Detroit, Mohamed Dabaja witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by his community, including substantial air and water pollution. These issues underscored the urgent need for increased awareness and the proactive implementation of urban sustainability measures. Determined to drive positive change, Mohamed pursued an undergraduate degree in biology and nutritional sciences, graduating from Wayne State University in 2020.
As his passion for sciences and community grew, he took the next step in his educational journey by enrolling in the Ph.D. program at Wayne State University’s Department of Biological Sciences. His current research focuses on the impact of environmental factors on fertility.
Beyond his research, Mohamed serves as the Graduate School Representative on the Student Senate, where he has supported initiatives aimed at fostering a more biodiverse campus community. His dedication to education extends to his role as an instructor in the Comparative Physiology lab, where he educates students about the effects of water pollutants on the physiology of the model organism Daphnia magna.