Graduate Student of the Month - Mohamed Eltarkawe

Mohamed Eltarkawe is a third-year PhD student in Prof. Shelly Miller’s research group. His research interests are directed towards understanding the relationship between well-being and industrial odors in five communities in Colorado: Fort Collins, Greeley, Fort Lupton, North Denver, and Pueblo. He developed an android app (Report Odor 1) through which he is collecting data.

Mohamed was born in Karsa, a tiny town in the northeastern part of Libya. He got his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Omar Al-Mukhtar University. In 2008, Mohamed was awarded a full scholarship from the Higher Ministry of Education in Libya to pursue a graduate degree in the US. He graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2011. He went back to Libya and taught for two years at the University of Omar Al-Mukhtar. His wife is a teacher as well and they have a 3-year old son and 3-month old baby girl.

Beyond school, Mohamed enjoys family time, camping, soccer, gardening, cooking and above all volunteering. In Karsa, he was part of a group nicknamed “Ragoba” that cleans the water channel in his town. In Boulder, Mohamed enjoys preparing breakfast every other Saturday at the Boulder Homeless Shelter.