LERC Kicks Off Internal Summer Activities

By Basma Abdul Khalek (LERC Research Assistant) and Elie Nabhan (LERC Team)

28th August 2008: LERC Team gathers to say farewell to LERC Research Affiliate Wolf-Hagen von-Angern and wife Dina Almissber-von Angern, at party in Aljaltoun
(More to Come)

5th August 2008:  To recognize the fine work performed by Marie-José Tayah that included carrying out some of Director Hourani’s work while the latter was on mission in Australia, the move to the new LERC offices, the work with Dr. Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous, LERC’s Adjunct Research Associate, on the handbook on Absentee Voting, and her huge effort in training researchers and staff at LERC, a lunch was given in her honor by the Centre to bid her a fond farewell on her trip back to the University of Kent in the United States. LERC Director Ms. Guita Hourani expressed her warm appreciation and those of the Center to Ms. Tayah who also reported on many events, including the Nigeria Week in Lebanon

Ms. Hourani took the opportunity to welcome to LERC two new Research Affiliates, Mr. Fouad Marie from Egypt/UK and Ms. Nadejda Marinova from Bulgaria/USA.

Fouad Marie is a Doctoral Fellow at Durham University researching the political economy of informal networks and their role in the promotion and sustenance of clientelism, sectarian and regionalist affiliations in post-war Lebanon. Marie is also engaged in research on international migration and the impact of transnational migrants on socio-political development in developing countries.

While at LERC, Nadejda Marinova will conduct research for her dissertation entitled House of Lebanon: Political Mobilization of the US-based Lebanese Diaspora. This will focus on the US-based Lebanese Diaspora, which affects politics in the host and home countries. The research will consider the institutions of Lebanese-Americans in the United States, seeking to explain their activity and motivation for connection to the original homeland, as well as their activities directed at lobbying US foreign policy   towards Lebanon.

Ms. Hourani also extended a warm welcome to Dr. Peter Adebayo back on his second trip to the Center. Dr. Adebayo is a CODESRIA Laureate and Visiting Professor to LERC. His Ph.D. dissertation was on The Lebanese and the Economy of Lagos, 1890-1980. Dr. Adebayo was a Research Associate at LERC but had to cut off his research fellowship and leave due to the summer 2006 War. While at LERC, he will conduct post- doctoral research on Lebanese returnees from Nigeria to Lebanon, focusing on family, transnational networking and development in Lebanon.

Others attending the event were LERC staff Ghada Khoury and LERC team member Elie Nabhan, LERC Research Assistant Basma Abdel Khalek, Research Affiliates Wolf-Hagen von Angern and his wife Dina, Dr. Doumit Salameh, Professor at NDU, Mr. Fawzi Baroud, Director of Computing Services and eLearning Center at NDU, and Dr. Kamal Abou Chedid, Director of the Center for Applied Research in Education. Also present was former LERC Research Assistant Rudy Sassine.

 

Colleagues and the best of friends: Guita Hourani bids farewell to Marie-José Tayah. (August 2008)

 

The old and the new LERC members (from left to right) Ms. Abdel Khalek, Mr. Nabhan, Ms. Khoury, Mrs. Almissber von Angern, Ms. Tayah, Mr. von Angern, Ms. Marinova, and Dr. Adebayo. (August 2008)

At the farewell lunch (from left to right) Marie-José Tayah, Fouad Marie, Wolf-Hagen von Angern and Elie Nabhan. (August 2008)

29th July 2008: Dr. Assaad Eid, NDU Vice-President for Research and Development, who was instrumental in bringing forward the LERC offices move, paid a courtesy call to the Center. LERC was delighted to welcome the VPRD, who met with the LERC Director Guita Hourani, and was introduced to the newly arrived visiting researchers, Ms. Nadejda (Nadia) Marinova and Mr. Fouad Marie.

Ms. Marinova is a Research Affiliate with the Lebanese Emigration Research Center, and a Ph.D. candidate in Politics and International Relations at the Univ. of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Eid discussed with Ms. Marinova her research topic for the dissertation that she will conduct entitled House of Lebanon: Political Mobilization of the US-based Lebanese Diaspora.

Likewise, Dr. Eid took time to discuss with Mr. Marie, Research Affiliate at the Lebanese Emigration Research Center and a Doctoral Fellow at Durham University, his work on researching the political economy of informal networks and their role in the promotion and sustenance of clientalist, sectarian and regionalist affiliations in post-war Lebanon.
Dr. Eid was then given a tour of the new premises.

14th & 18th July 2008: Marie-José Tayah, who spent the summer as a Research Affiliate with LERC and is currently a PhD student at Kent State University’s Political Science Department, gave a brief training to LERC staff Ms. Ghada Khoury, LERC indexers Ms. Liliane Haddad and Mr. Elie Nabhan on how to recognize and write a research paper abstract and how to write and differentiate an abstract from an introduction or a summary.

Marie-José Tayah training LERC Staff. (July 2008)

Thaddeus Hicks, who is currently a Ph.D. student at Kent State University in Ohio, studying Political Science while concentrating on justice politics and policies, and worked as a Research Affiliate with LERC over the summer, gave an instructive and animated training session to the same group on non-verbal communication and how to read personalities just by observing character mannerisms.

Thaddeus Hicks training LERC Staff Ms. Liliane Haddad with Mr. Elie Nabhan listening. (July 2008)

2nd-4th July 2008: LERC moved from its old offices at the Pierre Abou Khater Hall into new offices at the new research building. The move was carried out by LERC staff, namely Ghada Khoury and Liliane Haddad with help from Elie Nabhan (LERC Team). LERC Research Affiliates Thaddeus Hicks and Marie-José Tayah were most helpful and instrumental in carrying out this demanding relocation.