Samer Kurdi was born in Amman, Jordan and moved to Canada with his family at the age of seven. The challenges of being a newcomer to Canada, including the language barrier and the culture shock, were building blocks of Samer’s identity and established his hardworking and resilient nature as two cultures melded into one. Like many immigrant families, his parents emphasised hard work, education and a sense of social responsibility. It is because of them that he wanted to use the opportunities available to him in Canada to serve the public and broader policy context.
After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo obtaining a BASc in Nanotechnology Engineering, Samer has since spent the last seven years living and working in France, Germany and the UK. This has given him an invaluable opportunity to work with diverse groups, learn new languages and absorb different cultures. He has used the skills he obtained as a new immigrant in Canada to easily build collaborations with over 20 institutions spanning North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. He has most recently worked at the Japanese National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) expanding his global collaborations. This is connected to the current PhD research he is conducting at the University of Cambridge which is part of a Europe-wide Innovative Training Network Marie Curie programme, comprised of 15 PhD students and 20 principal investigators, in nine different countries. He has also been instrumental in setting up collaborations with the Centre for Spinelectronic Materials and Devices at Bielefeld University, the Diamond Light Source, and the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford.
Within his PhD program Samer is using materials science to study alloy compositions for data storage applications avoiding, or with minimum amounts of, scarce or toxic elements. His belief is that scientific solutions without a sustainability perspective lead to only short-term gains, and he will continue implementing and promoting a sustainable materials approach in any future work.
As an aspiring leader in the field of materials science and physics and someone who embraces education, Samer understands it is important to share one’s knowledge for the benefit of others. As a result, he has tutored in a variety of roles in the past and most recently at the University of Cambridge. He has also supported various education and policy events such as the yearly Cambridge Science Festival and the Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange (CUSPE) society.
Outside of his research, Samer has taken on roles to promote social equality and a healthy lifestyle; for example, he is co-founder of Majico (www.majico.org), a social enterprise developing water treatment solutions for the developing world. He also plays basketball at a competitive level, playing for two years for the University of Cambridge Blues Basketball team.
