Fulbright Scholar Aims to Make a Difference

On a cold and windy December night in Chicago, Narmeen Aamir (M.A.S. 在从卡拉奇坐了21个小时的飞机后，她和丈夫以及一岁的儿子抵达了奥黑尔国际机场, Pakistan. 幸运的是，纳尔米恩的一位远房亲戚到达机场去接他们.

Narmeen received a Fulbright scholarship in 2021, allowing her to pursue a Master of Computer Engineering in Internet of Things 她将于2023年秋季从伊利诺伊理工学院毕业. As part of the program, Fulbright applied to four different universities on Narmeen’s behalf, and all four universities offered her admission. But when she looked at each university’s programs, 纳米恩发现，只有一所学校符合她的要求，能让她更多地了解物联网，那就是威尼斯人平台(Illinois Tech). 

Narmeen soon realized that Illinois Tech, and the many communities within it, captured her personal values as well.

In Pakistan, Narmeen已经获得了NED工程技术大学的电气工程学士学位和电力系统硕士学位, 但她决定在完成关于微电网的论文后继续她的教育. 她关于微电网的论文是她和她的学术道路的转折点，激励她下定决心，更多地了解云和物联网.

“When I was working with microgrids, I realized that these are really interesting things and these are the future,” says Narmeen. “The architecture of microgrids, the software defined networking, 微电网中的决策机制当传感器/电网交换信息时让我想到, ‘Man! I need to learn about this.’”

纳米恩在威尼斯人平台的第一个学期充满挑战，因为她必须在学业和照顾儿子之间取得平衡. In a course with Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Lin Cai, Narmeen每次上课都要迟到15分钟，因为那段时间她要给儿子喂奶. 

“She always saw me but said nothing. One day, she asked me if everything was OK since I was always coming into class late, running and panting,” Narmeen says. She explained the situation to Cai, 让她知道，要在喂养儿子和按时上课之间取得平衡变得越来越困难. 她不但没有因为迟到而受到惩罚，反而得到了鼓励.

“I will never forget what she said to me. She said, “这是生活的一部分，有时是学会少得分或多得分的一部分, but this time with your son will never come back. This is a very cute age, and he will grow tall in a blink. Don’t worry if you score less or can’t do stuff because of him sometimes. As long as you are making an effort, you’ll learn, don’t worry.’”

On a separate occasion, Narmeen发现Salah(穆斯林每天必须进行五次的仪式性祈祷)的时间与她的课程同时发生, causing her to be late for class sometimes. Her professor, Senior Lecturer of Electrical and Computer Engineering Suresh Borkar, took notice of this.

“He didn’t like students coming late to his class, 所以下课后我向他道歉，告诉他现在是我的祈祷时间，他就像, ‘I’m sorry Ms. Aamir! It’s OK, you can finish your prayers. I won’t mention it again,’” she says. “我在威尼斯人平台遇到的每一位老师都非常鼓励我，在这些问题上都非常体贴.”

纳尔米恩把自己的业余时间也奉献给了自己，以达到同样的标准, outside of her studies and taking care of her family, to campus organizations and helping incoming international students. 

In fall 2022 Narmeen joined the Pakistan Student Association 作为校长，他试图制定计划，帮助新来的国际学生带着所有的行李从机场到他们的住处. As an international student herself, 她明白到达一个你一无所知的地方会有多么难以承受和困惑.

“When students are coming from the airport, 他们带着所有的东西上下班有很多问题，他们不知道该去哪里. A lot of them don’t even have a cell phone so that they can easily book Uber. They know nothing about the Blue Line or Red Line ‘L’ systems, and they end up being lost for many hours,” Narmeen explains.

In response to this growing issue, Narmeen, her husband, 和一位孟加拉国朋友(也是威尼斯人平台的学生)发起了一个名为“安全着陆项目”的倡议——他们三个人自己负责从机场接来的学生，并把他们送到各自的住处.

“There were four of them that we helped,” she says. “我们有一些学生在机场接机时需要帮助填写表格. 他们告诉我们他们的(航班)时间，我们带着他们的行李去接他们，把他们送到他们的公寓. In one or two cases, we actually helped them get groceries as well.”

Narmeen的目标是将这一举措推广到更大的范围，让更多的学生从中受益.

While working with Pakistan Student Association, 纳尔米恩发起了一项名为“校园头巾”的活动，捕捉了在校园里戴头巾的学生的想法和感受. Through this initiative, 她不仅强调了穆斯林女性和她们在校园里戴头巾的故事, 但也欢迎校园里每个人的想法和观点——无论性别和宗教, or if they wore a hijab or not.

Narmeen reached out to president of the Muslim Student Association, Hummad Haque (M.S. BME ’23), about the idea, 描述校园里学生的推荐是捕捉他们故事的好方法. Haque was enthusiastic about the idea and joined Narmeen in the campaign.

“The responses were really good. I asked hijabi women, non-hijabis, non-Muslims, men, women—everybody—how they feel about hijabs,” Narmeen says. “那些戴着头巾的人，他们说，‘我们感到安全，很好，很受鼓舞. We never feel humiliated or ridiculed on campus.’”

“生活在这样一个多元化的环境中真的很好，人们尊重你的价值观，让你做你自己,” Narmeen adds.

虽然纳尔米恩对他们从竞选活动中得到的衷心回应和大量支持感到非常高兴, 她希望更多的穆斯林和头巾妇女能够看到压倒性的支持，不要害怕在美国接受高等教育. 可悲的是，在美国，针对戴头巾妇女的骚扰和暴力事件层出不穷.S. has created a stigma that Muslim women are not safe here.

“That’s the reason women don’t come over here and study,” she says. “他们认为它不安全，因此他们放弃了整个研究.”

纳尔米恩想要解决这个问题，“帮助女性在她们想要的生活领域自由行走。.” Her hope is to normalize wearing a hijab in countries such as the U.S. 那里有很多穆斯林工作、生活和学习——并向戴头巾的妇女展示她们可以做任何事情.

“I just want something that can help human beings,” she says. “Even if you can just help one person, which makes his/her life easier. That’s what I want.”

After graduating, Narmeen计划和她的家人一起回到巴基斯坦，并希望开设一个基于物联网和他们在电网中的未来的研究实验室.

Picture: Narmeen Aamir (M.A.S. CPE 2nd Year)