Huda is an applied physics and astronomy student from Syria, who studies at the University of Sharjah in the UAE. At CERN, she has been doing data analysis to improve the trigger system for the ATLAS experiment.

Though she always hoped to come to CERN one day, she did not envisage this as a real possibility. The night she learned that she had been accepted into the summer student programme, she had decided to stop checking her emails, “I was like I’m not going to look at my emails. I’m not going to wait for this CERN e-mail anymore”. She was celebrating a birthday with friends, when she snuck a glance at her phone. “I look at my friend, I whisper to her, ‘I got accepted’. Suddenly a room full of girls is just screaming.”

Huda found being in a science environment really inspiring, “At CERN, even the jokes are about science”. The part of the experience she found most memorable was getting to sit in the same office as her two supervisors. She says, “This was one of the best things that I got to experience – the everyday life of an actual scientist. This is what taught me the most, this is what I will always remember, and this is what I am looking up to in the future”.

One of her own personal goals is to make education and science research accessible to all, and she is grateful to the supporters of the CERN & Society Foundation for making such an opportunity available for her.

Her personal takeaway and advice for any other young people interested in the programme, “You might not see your future, but it is right ahead”.