The heart of Carnegie Mellon is people coming together to teach, to study, and to do research. We're blessed with a wonderful space that encourages that kind of collaborative, active, cross-disciplinary learning.
—Chuck E. Thorpe (S'85)
Dean, Carnegie Mellon Qatar
It's Myriam Chandna's first day of orientation at Education City in Doha, Qatar. Her dad, a former military officer from Pakistan, has accompanied her from their family home that is just a few miles outside of Doha. She watches him, full of pride, quickly pin a Carnegie Mellon badge onto his suit when they enter the building Carnegie Mellon shares with Cornell Medical School.
She is excited to be here, too, and thankful she can go to college close to home. Her mother had developed ALS, a terminal neurodegenerative disease, so Chandna didn't want to move from Qatar. After she earns her degree, she hopes to open a research center for ALS and has enrolled in Carnegie Mellon's business program to learn the nuances of establishing a nonprofit.
Four years later, like most college students, Chandna's story has evolved. She describes what is happening at Qatar as nothing short of "phenomenal." The education and the immersion into more than 70 different nationalities represented in Education City helped her better define her aspirations. She still wants to help people, but on a more global scale, as she plans to be a lawyer for the United Nations. The senior, now an English major completing her degree in Pittsburgh, says she will always remember Qatar for nurturing her "big, big dreams."
More dreams than ever will have a chance to be nurtured in Qatar. On February 22, with the university's trustees in attendance, President Jared Cohon joined Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, chairperson of Qatar Foundation, in cutting the ribbon for Carnegie Mellon's exclusive home, a 460,000-square-foot building that includes 149 offices and workstations, a library, five lecture halls, 11 classrooms, five labs, five computer classrooms, and a robotics lab.
—Danielle Commisso (HS'06)
