Rula Tabbash first learned about physics as a young child growing up in Syria. Some two decades later, Tabbash is expanding her knowledge of physics with the help of ICTP and the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA).

High Energy Commitments

Throughout her education and travels, Rula Tabbash has maintained a childlike fascination with the physical world in which we live. Such enduring interest has taken her from her hometown, Aleppo, Syria, where she studied physics at Aleppo University, to Trieste, Italy, first as a student in ICTP Diploma Course in high energy physics and now as a doctoral student in elementary particle physics at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA).

When it came to physics, Tabbash excelled within her own country. Yet, her performance at school, which won her many accolades at home, tended to leave her somewhat behind when she arrived in Trieste in 1995 to begin her year-long studies in ICTP Diploma Course.

"Texts used by students in Syria," Tabbash explains, "were often out of date and the teaching not on par with the instruction that other Diploma students had received."

As a result, Tabbash adds, "I found myself at a disadvantage during the early weeks and months of ICTP Diploma Course."

Luckily for Tabbash, the Diploma Course recognises that incoming students will possess different levels of knowledge and skills, largely as a result of the previous schooling they have received. For this reason, the first few months of the course are devoted to 'levelling the playing field' to ensure that all students--regardless of their backgrounds--can keep pace during the second half of the course when the instruction picks up steam and delves into new subject areas that none of the students have learned before.

"I really took advantage of the first few months of the Diploma Course to build a strong foundation in university-level physics that has served me well ever since. The doors of the professors teaching the courses were always opened and I was not shy about asking for assistance. Antonio Masiero, Seifallah Randjbar-Daemi and George Thompson were particularly helpful. I don't think I would have been able to make it through without their guidance."

"Despite the competition, the students themselves also supported one another both inside and outside the classroom," Tabbash adds. "Through our study groups and after-study activities, we nurtured a sense of community that has led many members of the class to stay in touch despite the vast distances now separating us. Weekly e-mails among my friends in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States are not uncommon, and I suspect that they will continue as our careers and lives unfold."

After successfully completing the ICTP Diploma Course, Tabbash was accepted to doctoral programmes at both the National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy (NIKHEF) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy.

"I decided to turn down those offers when I learned that I was accepted to SISSA's doctoral programme," she says. "The close interaction between SISSA, ICTP and the University of Trieste's Department of Theoretical Physics creates a unique learning environment that I don't think is replicated in many other places."

Tabbash was only one of four students (out of nearly 40 who had applied) to be accepted into SISSA doctoral programme in physics in 1998--testimony to the progress she had made since her arrival in Trieste two years earlier. Her field of study at SISSA is elementary particle physics and her supervisor is Antonio Masiero, her former Diploma Course professor.

"I'm convinced," Tabbash says, "that there's a direct link between childhood fascination in physics and my current studies at the ICTP and SISSA. It's all part of a life of learning that never begins too soon and never ends."

"After completing my studies in Trieste and a postdoc either in Europe or the United States, I hope to convey some of the joy of learning that I have experienced here when I return to Syria. Giving something back to the scientific community in my country is the least I could do to express my appreciation for what so many others have done for me."

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