Dr Mar de Fez-Laso joined the Arts, Science & Education College of AHLIA University as an Associate Professor in September 2013. As a faculty member, she teaches courses on subjects in mathematics and physics and undertakes other academic activities including preparation and grading of assessments, course coordination, student advising, invigilation and evaluations. She is a member of several university committees (including the International Exchange Committee; the Teaching, Learning & Assessment Committee; and the E-learning Committee) and a member of Mathematical Sciences Department Ad-hoc Committees. She also dedicates some of her time to giving workshops for the College. Prior to joining AHLIA, Dr Mar was an Associate Professor at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in Bahrain for eight academic years. During this time, she taught Foundations of the Scientific Process, Physics, and Mathematics courses. She was an active contributor to the quality teaching and learning framework of her College, and, as Coordinator for the Sciences, she participated in faculty hiring, advising and assessment, development of placement tests, revision of staff/faculty/students handbooks, and coordination of courses.

I am naturally linked to the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN, Switzerland) and the world of Experimental Particle Physics due to my years of research in the field (1989 to 1997) and previous permanent base at the laboratory. Since 2008 I have been the spokesperson of CERN for the Kingdom of Bahrain. One facet of the spokesperson is to share the latest discoveries in the field with fellow colleagues and also to a wider audience spanning from other universities to high schools and societies. I have given talks in AHLIA University and also in several occasions at the University of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates University and NYIT-NUPT (Nanjing, China). I keep in close contact with scientists of the Arab countries too. Another aspect of the role is the promotion of CERN’s outreach programme. I look for suitable students across majors with the goal of their participation in CERN student programmes, and I provide coaching for them. In 2011 I facilitated the acceptance of the first ever Bahraini student, Hamad Mohammed, to participate in the Summer Student Programme of the laboratory. After two years coaching by me, Hamad was ready to work for two months in the Optical Links Calibration of the Tracker of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS), which is part of the Large Hadron Collider project. Hamad excelled in his project.