Saja Tawalbeh

My name is Saja Tawalbeh, I came from Jordan and I'm a Ph.D researcher and mandate assistant at the Department of Computer Science. I was born in Jordan around 30 years ago. I was raised in a beautiful city in north Jordan called Irbid. I have a lot of interesting hobbies, such as playing piano and photography. I had my bachelor and master certificates from Jordan University of Science and Technology which is one of the top universities in my region. I came to Antwerp nine months ago to do my ph.D and I'm currently working at IDLab which associates with the University of Antwerp. My research is focused on making artificial intelligence systems more understandable and this is very important since they are doing high performance better than humans, so we focus on what information are taking into account when making decisions.

This is the first year of my ph.D journey at the University of Antwerp. So far, I'm in love with Antwerp, it's a very beautiful city, I was worried about missing my country a lot, but when I came here nine months ago I could immediately imagine living in Belgium for the rest of my life with the historical buildings, the cultures, taste for gastronomy, and the diversity of several nationalities. The most thing I like about Antwerp is that the people are amazing and so friendly.  

Antwerp is full of positive energy and since my favorite hobby is photography, I grab my camera most of the days and enjoy the positivity of Antwerp, starting from the streets where you can see the emotional expressions on the people faces, how crowded they are, you can see the wonderful buildings embracing the sky, and the most breathtaking for me, the view of de Schelde where you can see the harmony between the singing of the seagulls and the response of the waves in the river to them, moreover, the reflection of the sunset to the water in the golden hour makes this my favorite spot. If you would like to enjoy the beauty of Antwerp through my eyes, you can follow me on Instagram "sajakhtawalbeh".

Regarding the diversity and the cultures in Antwerp, MONDO has the ability to provide a lot of impressive activities to create a social network for us, such as 'Walking in small groups' (get to know each other), 'Guided city tour' (get to know Antwerp more), and visit the famous museums. I have joined three MONDO activities, I have enjoyed all of them, but my favorite is the last one: 'Canoeing on the Dijle' and discover Mechelen, this is considered the biggest adventure in my life. In my point of view, MONDO is our warm international home where you can see love and happiness in our eyes every time, where we can share our amazing thoughts with new amazing people around the whole world. For me, I'll try to attend all of the MONDO activities from now on, and I can only recommend that you do the same!