During my fourth year of studying Islamic Archaeology, I had the opportunity to attend an introductory module about maritime archaeology in the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at Alexandria University. Since then, maritime archaeology has been the main focus of my studies and research interests. After completing my BA I enrolled in the post graduate diploma at the Centre, and since then, I participated in numerous underwater excavations in Egypt, Lebanon, and Croatia. I am a divemaster, and at the moment I am preparing for the HSE Scuba qualification, funded by the Honor Frost Foundation.
Furthermore, I received an HFF bursary for attending the “Under The Mediterranean” conference hosted by the University of Cyprus in 2017. In this conference, I presented a poster on my research about maritime museums and preserving Egyptian maritime culture heritage. I also received another bursary in 2019 for attending “The second workshop for underwater 3D recording and modelling” also hosted by the University of Cyprus.
In 2018, I was granted an ERASMUS+ Mobility for 3 months in the University of Southampton. During this project, I had the chance to participate in some of the outreach events, and I also joined the Black Sea Map outreach team in a lot of events around the UK. In October 2018, I started to work as a Research Assistant at the University of Southampton with Prof. Sturt on the EduMust project (Education and capacity building in museums studies). My participation in these projects enhanced my knowledge in Museums Studies and how the different technologies can help us to display our heritage. Consequently, in September 2019, I received an HFF scholarship to complete my research about maritime museums and preserving Egyptian maritime heritage through a MA degree at the University of Southampton.