IAP Young Physician Leader Dr Samiya Abi Jaoudé at Trieste Next 2026

IAP Young Physician Leaders alumna Samiya Abi Jaoudé was one of four speakers at Networks as Channels of Scientific Diplomacy, a round table organised by The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries (TWAS), the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) at the science festival Trieste Next on 25 September 2026. And she brought to the event a message about the vital importance of building trust.

Lebanon's first female neurosurgeon, Abi Jaoudé continued her training in France, where she now works at the Adolphe de Rothschild Foundation Hospital in Paris. She shared the panel with TWAS executive director Marcelo Knobel; Kleinsy Bonilla, a Guatemalan researcher in development economics and science diplomacy; and Lamberto Maria Moruzzi of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Drawing on her work experience in Lebanon, France and Rwanda, Abi Jaoudé argued that networks become real channels of diplomacy only when they are built on trust, reciprocity and inclusion. She recalled her experience in the IAP Young Physician Leaders programme in 2024, which trains emerging leaders working  in medicine and public health and links them together in a peer-support network to improve health in their countries and globally. 

The programme gave her leadership tools and relationships with physicians from different countries and healthcare systems. "Trust turns a network from a showcase into a space for learning," she said.

She also spoke about the role of the diaspora. "The diaspora should not be a one-way channel through which knowledge flows from better-resourced countries to less-resourced ones. A bridge must work in both directions."

On inclusion, she spoke directly to young researchers from the global South, women scientists and early-career professionals.

"Inclusion is not simply about inviting people into the room. It is about ensuring that they can influence priorities, participate in decision-making, and lead."

On the same day, Abi Jaoudé and Bonilla met local school pupils at a booth shared between IAP, TWAS, OWSD, and The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). There, they talked with students about their careers and their experiences as women in science.

The full recording of the panel is available here:

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.