be an ordinary human being with non-scientific inclinations or artistic talents no less remarkable than those who have devoted their lives to the arts. The famous economist Malthus was a poet, and Keynes, the author of the General Theory, was passionate about ballet. There are many examples in the history of this sometimes dull and sometimes harsh science—individuals with high academic and scientific competence who have found a parallel path that nourishes their human side as ordinary people who love and hate, rejoice and grieve, just like everyone else.
Nabila El-Eskandarani, professor of microeconomics at the American University in Cairo, is simply another model of this type of academic. She is a well-known professor among university students due to her academic excellence, as evidenced by the high demand for registration in her classes. Her students often say she is the best at making this complex subject, with its many mathematical problems, understandable. It is also known about her that she does not hand out final grades casually—her students must work hard to earn them, in return for the intellectual effort she makes to deliver economic concepts to them in the clearest forms and applications.
On the other side of her personality, she also works as a jazz dance instructor at the Gezira Sporting Club—jazz being one form of what is known as modern dance, which blends with theatrical and expressive scenes. It is worth mentioning that she is the niece of Samir El-Eskandarani, the famous singer of the late 1970s and 1980s and one of the innovators in blending Eastern and Western music. Her father was his business manager for just two years and produced his album Qaddak El Mayyas, in which Aleppine maqams were fused with disco beats. Perhaps this formed the seed within her that later developed into her artistic leanings.
Returning to Nabila’s academic life, she was among the top students at the American University, where she earned a BA in economics with honors, followed by an MA from the same university on the analysis of competitive advantages in the Egyptian economy. She completed her PhD on the same topic as well—but from the American University in London, with some expansion in academic perspective. She has also published several studies related to the same topic in research affiliated with USAID. This academic excellence might stem from her parents’ love of knowledge. Despite his artistic interests (albeit from afar), her father was a professor of systems science at the American University in Cairo, while her mother was a professor of mathematics and scientific thinking at the same university. Both earned multiple master’s degrees and studied for their PhDs together at Portland State University, where Nabila was born before coming to Egypt as a young child.
Her pursuit of modern dance was not accidental. She was the national gymnastics champion at age ten and represented Egypt in many international tournaments, winning numerous medals. This qualified her to join the modern dance troupe at the Cairo Opera House at age fourteen after suffering a cruciate ligament injury. She represented Egypt in several arts festivals in Europe and the United States. Nabila began teaching jazz dance at age fifteen at the largest training center for such arts in Egypt and continued doing so until she devoted herself to university teaching and her job as a department manager at Omar Effendi Company, narrowing her artistic activities to just the Gezira Club courses. When asked about how her artistic interests affect her relationship with students, she answered, “Some students at the university also study with me at the club, and the relationship is very good and based on mutual respect because I am diligent. In general, I only teach dance to girls.” Thus, Nabila El-Eskandarani has brought together what some may see as two opposites—and she has mastered them both.
This article is originally published by AlBorsa in Arabic and later AI-translated by South Push.