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KAUST and ANPERC regularly host exceptional undergraduate students as Visiting Students to conduct unique research and explore graduate opportunities. It is one of the best-in-class strategies for encouraging bright young minds from Saudi Arabia and around the world to pursue graduate education.

One of ANPERC's recent Visiting Student interns is Aseel Alsantely, who is completing an internship in the EGEL lab under supervision of Professor Carlos Santamarina. Alsantely is an undergraduate life science student at Alfaisal University in Riyadh where she studies chemistry, physics and biology to prepare for her graduation project next year. She visited KAUST with her university for an open house in May 2017 and was immediately taken with the number of resources available to KAUST students, the lab equipment provided for each division and the number of world renowned scientists teaching and researching at KAUST.

To support my dream to use the vast KAUST resources, lab facilities and to be able to interact with the scientists, I decided to apply for a 3-week Visiting Student Internship at KAUST," she says.

Alsantely utilizes the two low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) recently equipped by ANPERC to investigate the relaxation of bulk fluids (e.g., water and crude oil) and pore fluids in porous media. She also tries to investigate the influence of salt concentration on clay sedimentation processes.

Alsantely: "The goal of my Visiting Student Internship is to understand how actual research is conducted and to be able to interact with people who actually have a big influence on science and the research industry. This way, I will be able to learn how to write and explain scientific papers, how to organize my own scientific ideas and how to predict and estimate the results of my research. In this way I can prepare myself for my graduation research project next year."

Asked about her possible future career path Alsantely explains: "My goal is to continue my studies and participate in research in KAUST labs. I want to be able to find new information that would benefit my future studies and development as a scientist."

We want to thank Aseel for this interview and we hope to see her back at KAUST in the future.