Meet Islam Hamama from Egypt

The Egyptian National Data Centre is located in Helwan, on the east bank of the longest river in the world, the Nile. Young Professionals member Islam Hamama works as a Research Assistant at the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (the Egyptian National Data Center) and is a Ph.D. student at the Kochi University of Technology in Japan. We talked to Islam about his daily work, Egypt, and the Young Professionals Network.

Working for the Egyptian National Data Center

Islam Hamama is responsible for analyzing local and regional earthquakes in Egypt, in addition to studying seismo-acoustic events using the international monitoring system network. The Egyptian National Seismic Network consists of almost 70 seismometers and 17 accelerometers which are distributed all over Egypt.

According to Islam, his interest in infrasound technology has become a big part of his life.

- Whenever I see an airplane flying, I usually think about when this airplane will exceed the sound speed to produce shockwaves. Any natural crisis automatically translates into signals now. So, I feel that our lives are a combination of signals which require a lot of work from us to understand.

Islam Hamama in front of I48TN in Tunisia during the African Regional Infrasound Workshop and Integrated Training for NDCs in February 2018. He thinks it was great to see the station behind the datasets he usually analyzes.

The origin of civilization

Egypt is undoubtedly a fascinating place, and Islam Hamama illustrates this by pointing to the country’s historical roots.

- Egypt is the origin of civilization; Ancient Egyptian knowledge left a great history for all the nations and it remains in form of monuments in different cities in Egypt and worldwide museums. Besides, the location of Egypt is very unique.

To Japan for further studies

Islam studied geophysics and acoustics and completed his master’s degree in infrasound at the Mansoura University in 2017. Now, he is a second-year Ph.D. student at the Kochi University of Technology in Japan.

- My Ph.D. is about studying infrasound propagation modelling from different natural and man-made sources in different conditions of the atmosphere. I will gladly help the YPN community on this topic.

Islam explains that he applied for the Egypt-Japan Education Partnership Scholarship in 2019. He lives in Japan and goes to university according to the conditions of the COVID-19 situation, which sometimes means working remotely.

- However, when the conditions are good, I go to university five days a week. There is a well-organized system to ensure that only a few members are in the lab at the same time. Besides, we wear masks and check for symptoms before leaving our homes.

CTBT and the Young Professionals Network

Islam Hamama thinks that the facilities of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty are strong and valuable.

- In my opinion, the international monitoring system is not only important for Egypt but the whole world.

He has been a member of the YPN since the preparation of the National Data Centre Preparedness Exercise (NPE) 2020 and appreciated being a part of a collaboration between National Data Centre members from all over the world.

- I am a member of the YPN to get in touch with experts in different fields, both from national data centers and other organizations.

Lastly, he underlines the importance of knowledge transfer.

- I would be happy to help the members of the Young Professionals Network with any technical information related to my field of study, which is infrasound.