Layale Bazzi

Grade 11 students participating in the University of Windsor's Science Academy examine a jar containing the invasive spiny water fleas during a tour of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research on Wednesday, July 11, 2018.Grade 11 students participating in the University of Windsor's Science Academy examine a jar containing the invasive spiny water fleas during a tour of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research on Wednesday, July 11, 2018.

Past participants now mentors at UWindsor's Science Academy

Carefully tucked away in Layale Bazzi’s academic portfolio sits a certificate she received in Grade 11.

This certificate, while not her most notable accomplishment, represents a moment that forever influenced her academic career.

“When I first saw the University of Windsor’s department of physics in all its glory and met some of the students in the physics club at the time, it was like a whole new world opened up to me,” Bazzi said on Tuesday.

Layale Bazzi, Alan Wildeman and Erica Stevens Abbitt.Layale Bazzi accepts a semester’s free tuition from UWindsor president Alan Wildeman and Erica Stevens Abbitt, director of the Humanities Research Group.

Physics student wins praise and prize for defense of humanities

Disciplines in the humanities provide a frame for her to understand the implications of her work in sciences, says Layale Bazzi. The second-year physics student took top honours in the “Why Humanities” competition for her impassioned defense of their importance.

“Day in and day out, I am differentiating, integrating, rearranging and solving equations that describe the physical world around us,” she wrote. “What I can’t tell you are the ethical implications. All I can provide are facts about nature, and not human nature.”