CAIRO: The American University in Cairo's Provost Lecture series, which showcases AUC faculty research and scholarship, begins this month with a lecture by Professor Ali Hadi, distinguished university professor and founding director of the actuarial science program. AUC Provost Lisa Anderson inaugurated the series to highlight AUC faculty, whose research is recognized globally. “Our faculty is engaged in world class research in a variety of fields,” Anderson said, “and this lecture series provides an opportunity to showcase their work to a wider audience on the university campus and in Egypt more broadly.” Each semester the provost hosts four lectures – three in English and one in Arabic. In fall 2010, the series will present, in addition to Hadi, Samia Mehrez, professor of Arabic studies; actor, director and playwright Mahmoud Al Lozy, professor of drama; and Eskandar Tooma, British Petroleum associate professor of finance and a member of the American Economic Association and the American Finance Association. Hadi's lecture, “Visualizing Data beyond Three Dimensions: An Introduction to the Visualization of Massive, High-Dimensional Data,” will be held September 27. He will introduce efficient and effective graphs for the visualization of massive and high-dimensional data which are hard to visualize due to human visualization ability, which is limited to three-dimensional spaces and to the limitations inherited in the existing visualization tools. Mehrez will deliver the second lecture, “Mapping Cairo: Modern Literary Representations of the City,” on October 13. This lecture will discuss the way twentieth and twenty-first century Egyptian and Arab creative writers reconstruct the increasingly mobile and fragmented faces of the city of Cairo through their literary works. The third lecture in the series will be delivered in Arabic by Al Lozy on November 21. In the lecture – “Acting: Myths and Misconceptions” – he will discuss how the myths and misconceptions that surround acting have been generated and perpetuated not only by the general public, critics and reviewers, but also by members of the acting profession. The final lecture by Tooma, “Make More Money, Take No Risk: Arbitrage Operations in Internationally Cross-Listed Stocks,” will be held on December 13. This lecture will shed light on arbitrage operations within the context of Egyptian stocks that are cross-listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) as Global Depository Receipts (GDRs). The first three lectures will be held in the Conference and Visitor Center at AUC New Cairo with the final lecture by Tooma lecture in Moataz Al Alfi Hall. All lectures will be held at 4:00 pm and will offer simultaneous translation. BM
