Name in Native Language: عبداللطيف حمد

Department: Physics

Country of Origin: Palestine

Language(s) Spoken Other Than English: Arabic

Areas of Research Interest: Photonics and Lasers

How Long Have You Been in the U.S.? Since 1988

How Long Have You Been at SIUE? Since 2001

What Do You Like Most About SIUE? The people I have met. Everyone is very friendly and caring. I feel like I can fit in very well here. The campus is also beautiful.

What Do You Find To Be the Biggest Difference Between the U.S. and Your Home Country? There are a lot of differences, but the main one is how easy it is to accomplish things here. It's much easier to access many different things because you have the freedom of moving around without checkpoints. Security is another big difference as is the availability of resources to do research.

Interesting Facts: I came to the U.S. because my University was closed due to the uprising in Palestine and would be closed for 2 years. I didn't want to delay my studies for that long, so I came over here to join my brother, who was in Oklahoma.

I'm a very straight-forward person. I don't beat around the bush and will get straight to the point.