Recognizing exceptional achievement
Every fall during convocation, Concordia awards the university’s top students with Governor General’s medals: a silver medal to the undergraduate who finishes his or her degree with the highest marks, and a gold to the most outstanding graduate student.
This year, Najah Alhajri, who is graduating with a BA in psychology, will receive the silver medal. The gold medal in the category of technology, industry and the environment will be presented to Rafik Naccache, who recently completed his PhD thesis in chemistry.
Winning a Governor General’s medal is a significant achievement, but accolades are far from the most important thing for these two highly motivated individuals, who both seem destined to make their mark in their chosen fields.
Najah Alhajri
When Alhajri came to Canada in the summer of 2010 from her native Oman, she understood just enough English to pass the required language proficiency test for admittance into Concordia’s undergraduate program in psychology.
“I didn’t practice English in my country,” says the soft-spoken student, who completed an undergraduate degree and post-graduate certificate in Arabic literature before deciding she wanted to study psychology in Canada. “I just studied for the test, and got the grade they wanted, and that’s it.”
Needless to say, her first classes in neuroscience were a little challenging. “This was my first encounter with all of this, and it was in English!” she says, smiling. “When the professor was talking, I didn’t understand what he was talking about.”
Instead of heading for the nearest exit, Alhajri put her head down, and got the job done. At the end of her first term, she received all A-pluses and a 4.3 grade point average. “I like challenges,” she says simply. “I worked hard. I had five courses, no electives; all of them were psychology courses.”
During the two years it took Alhajri to complete her degree, Associate Professor Rick Gurnsey taught her three statistics courses and a directed research course dealing with issues associated with peripheral vision.
“I can say without hesitation that she is among the five or 10 brightest students that I’ve encountered in the last 25 years” he says. “She has a tremendous facility with technical material, so discussing statistical issues with her is like having a discussion with a colleague. She learns extraordinarily quickly and is extremely conscientious and dedicated to her studies.”
For the eager student, having a professor who recognized her strengths and her enthusiasm for the subject matter was extremely helpful. “He said that I’m an excellent student and I can do whatever I want,” she recalls. “His words really helped me. When you have a professor who is pushing you towards what you want … I’m really grateful to him for that.”
Alhajri has always been a strong student, but it took her a while to find her academic calling. She began her post-secondary studies in medical school, before switching to a program in Arabic literature. Her family wasn’t too happy when she switched streams once again, this time into psychology. But Alhajri had no doubts; she believed she had finally found her place. “When I studied psychology I found like, this is what I want, this is the thing that I want to do,” she says.
Psychology represented a powerful way for Alhajri to combine all of her social and scientific interests to further her understanding of what she’s most interested in.
Even if I’m good in science, mathematics, physics and chemistry, I don’t find these things so related to what I want to know about human nature,” she said. “So that’s why I wanted to go into psychology — I want to know more about why we are the way we are.”
It wasn’t difficult for Alhajri to have to read passages in her English textbooks numerous times in order to understand them, or to figure out how to write her term papers in a language other than her own, because every new bit of knowledge she acquired was a gift. “When I read something in psychology, I feel like I’m getting to know something new. So I shouldn’t forget that,” she says.
Alhajri has found her passion, and she’s going to follow it right through to the end. She plans to begin her master’s degree next fall, and then her PhD. In the meantime, she’s looking for a job as a research assistant to gain more experience in the lab.
“People sometimes say this or that is good for you; this will earn you a lot of money after graduating, stuff like that. But if you are passionate about what you are doing, you will do something special, and possibly something you hadn’t even dreamed about. You have to follow your passion,” she says.
Rafik Naccache
Naccache’s outstanding research into the use of luminescent nanoparticles in medical imaging and to target diseases has resulted in numerous published articles in the world’s top research journals. He defended his doctoral thesis in July as a member of Concordia’s Lanthanide Research Group, under the direction of Professor John Capobianco in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
During his time at Concordia, in addition to generating an impressive list of publications and putting in a stellar academic performance, Naccache developed into a scientific leader within his research group.
“In some ways, he was kind of like a hub,” Capobianco says. “He offered a lot of help to other students, and he’s got very strong leadership qualities.”
For Capobianco, the decision to nominate Naccache for the prestigious Governor
General’s medal wasn’t a difficult one. “He’s probably one of the best graduate students I’ve ever had,” he says. “He’s clearly capable, he’s a highly organized person, and he’s adventurous. He would try new things, and come out with new ideas, which is what you want in a PhD student … I think he has a brilliant future ahead of him. The work he did is really quite impressive.”
Before returning to Concordia to undertake his graduate research, Naccache spent some time working in the pharmaceutical industry, a job that resulted from his work terms as an undergraduate in the university’s co-operative education program. Now, as he completes his post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique in Varennes, he looks back fondly on his many years at Concordia.
“I’ve had an extremely positive experience,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of changes, but one thing that I think always remained consistent was the fact that people were always willing to help you. That’s one thing that I really loved about Concordia: the faculty and the staff are there to help you.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, Naccache has now decided he wants to pursue an academic career. “I think that’s my calling,” he says. “The intellectual freedom, the ability to really carry out research that you are passionate about, that interests you, this is something, for me, that you can’t really put a price on.”
Nevertheless, Naccache insists he’s not yet closing any doors, since employment in the highly competitive world of academia is far from guaranteed. “We have responsibilities in life, and if there’s no position that’s open, I’m not ruling out going into industry.”
Capobianco doubts Naccache will have much trouble fulfilling his dream of becoming a professor. “I’m sure if that’s the path that he takes, which I also encourage because of his qualities, I think he’s going to have a hard time making a choice; there’s going to be a lot of offers out there.”
Valedictorians
Concordia has released the names of the valedictorians, who will address the fall 2012 graduating classes. Marie-Eve Chagnon, a PhD graduate from the Department of History, will address the graduating class from the Faculty of Arts and Science; Marcelo Nepomuceno, a PhD graduate from the Business Administration Department, will address the graduating class from the John Molson School of Business; and Natasha Reid, a PhD graduate from the Department of Art Education, will address the graduating classes from the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science.
Related links:
• Convocation
• “Big day approaches for fall grads” — NOW, October 17, 2012
• Department of Psychology
• Lanthanide Research Group
• The Governor General of Canada