Director of UCI's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program prods students to learn from the world beyond the classroom
Said Shokair was supposed to be a doctor. His high school test scores qualified him for medical school, which he entered at age 17 in his native Syria. Six months later, though, after chatting with an uncle who was a pediatric cardiologist at UCLA, he opted to come to Southern California to complete his studies.
Several thousand UC Irvine students and alumni have good reason to celebrate that seemingly serendipitous about-face: Shokair exposed them to an education they might not otherwise have experienced.
After trading medical school for a UCI double major in electrical engineering and biology, Shokair graduated in 1990 and began to work with students at his alma mater. At first, he was a math counselor, a mentor for underrepresented students and a grant writer/curriculum developer.
Then, in 1994, he helped craft the proposal that redirected his career and, possibly, the careers of thousands of UCI students who learned that the best education often is found in the world outside their textbooks.
Shokair became the founding director of what is now UCI's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), where he has spent nearly 20 years designing and directing collaborations that get his young charges out of the classroom and into the laboratory or field.
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