Maroun was elected in April and will take up her new position in October. She sees her election as “an important message that anything is possible in Israeli academia,” she told Catholic News Agency.
‘It is a message to the Christian minority that we are rooted here, that we can succeed here. It is also a message for the young Arab generations: if you have a dream, you can really realize it in Israeli society and especially at the university.”
Can trauma be erased?
Maroun is a world-renowned researcher in the field of neuroscience and post-trauma and currently serves as Vice President for Research.
She investigates the neural and molecular basis of anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders. She wants to investigate whether it is possible to ‘erase’ memories of fear by silencing the neural mechanisms responsible for fear memories in the brain. Maroun received his PhD from the University of Haifa and did a postdoctoral degree in France at the University of Paris-South.
Study to integrate
The University of Haifa is located on Mount Carmel, about ten kilometers from the small village of Isfiya, where Maroun was born.
Her grandparents came there from Lebanon at the beginning of the 20th century. Her parents are semi-literate because there were no schools for them at the time, but, she says, “they believed that only through higher education could their four daughters integrate into Israeli society. That’s why they encouraged us to continue our studies.’
Maroun has embraced that attitude. “My childhood was all about being active in the Church and studying, knowing that only by studying could I succeed in Israel.”
When Maroun arrived at university, she didn’t know a word of Hebrew – Arabs and Jews have separate educational systems – and spoke little English. Yet Maroun became the first woman from her village to obtain a doctorate.
“No one expected me to succeed – as an Arab in Israel, as a Christian, and as a woman,” she explains. ‘I could do what I believed in, I had a dream and followed it without pressure. Only my family encouraged me to continue on this path.”
