Safa Zaki ’89 was recently named Bowdoin College’s first woman president.

“I come to this work with a whole set of life experiences — as a woman, as an Egyptian who has lived in several countries, as a cognitive scientist and as a teacher who believes deeply in liberal arts education.”

Born in Egypt, Zaki had an international upbringing, living in Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Syria and Jordan. She majored in psychology at AUC and went on to complete a master’s degree and PhD in the same discipline at Arizona State University. Her research on modeling cognitive processes earned her funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, and she has been published in many journals including Psychological Science, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.

A Few Facts About Safa’s time at AUC:

1. You could frequently find her sitting on the platform near the library on the Greek Campus 
2. She was the third from her family to attend AUC, after her sisters Maha and Dorreya.
3. Overall, her favorite thing about the University? The people.

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