As a young girl growing up in Syria, Raneem Knaj always knew what she wanted to be when she left school.
“As children in Syria we are encouraged to be doctors, or engineers, as these are highly respected professions in my community,” she says, smiling.
“But I was different. I always wanted to be a teacher.”
Dr Knaj adds: “For me, teaching is not about just delivering information, it is about being able to make something that seems difficult to understand at first so much clearer to others.”
The war in Syria meant Dr Knaj and her husband and three-year-old daughter had to leave, and the family moved to Govanhill on Glasgow’s Southside a year ago.
“I miss the many ordinary things that make a place feel like home,” she says, softly.
“The food, the language being spoken around me, the familiarity of a culture and those little social details that you don’t have to think about at home.
“But Glasgow has been welcoming. It has given me not just a place to continue my research but also a community where I can rebuild and grow.”
Dr Knaj is one of six people appointed to the RSE Young Academy of Scotland (YAS) through its At-Risk Academic/Refugee (ARAR) initiative. In joining, these members regain some of the social and professional capital they lost during their displacement, and YAS benefits from ARAR members’ unique talents and experience.
In Syria, Dr Knaj held a number of academic and leadership roles, and she has more than a decade of university teaching experience across electronic engineering, communications, signal processing, control systems and artificial intelligence.
She came to Scotland through the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), which has been supporting people facing immediate danger, persecution or forced exile in places like Syria and Ukraine since 1933, and she is now a Research Fellow in the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow.
“I did well academically at school, and was encouraged to study engineering, which I loved, eventually becoming a lecturer which allowed me to combine two things I loved most, teaching and engineering,” Dr Knaj explains, smiling.
Her current research looks at how AI can help in community healthcare.
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“There are characteristics of the human voice which can give us useful information about our health and wellbeing,” explains Dr Knaj. “Subtle changes in the way we speak can tell us things, not just the words spoken, but the rhythms and energy in the voice. Artificial intelligence can help analyse those patterns.”
She adds: “My interest is not in replacing doctors or health workers, but in developing tools that can support them.”
In her spare time, Dr Knaj also volunteers at the New Victoria Hospital in Glasgow.
“As a researcher, it is very important to talk to real patients, not just work in the labs,” she says.
Being selected for YAS, a network of young professionals from various fields who collaborate on projects to improve society and influence public policy, was a “wonderful boost”, says Dr Knaj.
“My career has always been about building bridges, between theory and practice, or students and opportunities, and more recently technology, healthcare and communities,” she adds.
“This feels like a natural place to do this on a wider scale. I am delighted. After rebuilding so much of my professional career in a new environment, it feels very meaningful to be accepted into a national, Scottish programme.”
She pauses.
“It feels like recognition not only of what I have already done, but also of what I can contribute,” says Dr Knaj.
“I really want to meet people whose experience is completely different from mine, because that’s when new ideas become possible, when different perspectives come together.”
Dr Knaj says she is grateful for the support of her colleagues at the University of Glasgow.
“It is a beautiful, impressive place, and everyone has been very helpful,” she says. “Glasgow is a diverse city, and I have known warmth and kindness. I am only just discovering Scotland but this feels like an important new chapter in my life.”
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