Kawthar Zaki

"I came from a large family of 4 sisters and 2 brothers. We lived in Cairo and my father was a civil servant and an actor and my mother was a homemaker. My father believed that the place for women is home to raise children. He did not believe that a girl’s education is important"

"My father had hoped for my brothers to become engineers, but I was the one who did in the end. My mother, having raised 7 kids without any help, was very supportive of me"

"I was the first woman to graduate with a PhD degree from the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of California Berkeley.”"

"The first time I went to the classroom, many students waled out. They thought they were in the wrong class. I wrote the title of the course on the board, and they came back."

"I was lucky to have a very supportive husband who saw our home life as his responsibility just as much as mine."

"The department has now hired many women and fortunately they have had a much easier time than I did, with maternity leave and lots of flexibility in doing research and teaching. I am glad that this happens, and that women are advancing and doing a great job, but I am still disappointed that in this country, we still have a glass ceiling and so few women choose to go into engineering."

"I’m so grateful that Egypt had free high quality public higher education when Ali and I met. If it were not for Ain Shams, I would not have been able to come this far."