Qatari adventurer Sheikh Moe Al Thani urges graduates to choose purpose and resilience
Georgetown Qatar’s Class of 2026 graduates with strong academic achievements and global placements, closing a defining chapter on a high note amid global uncertainty.
“Find your mountain, that one thing that lights your soul on fire. Climb it. And then hold the door for others.”
That was the message H.E. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Al Thani — the first Qatari to reach the highest peak on all seven continents and ski to the South Pole — brought to Georgetown University in Qatar’s Class of 2026 during commencement on Thursday, May 7.
For a group of graduates whose experiences over the past four years shaped them in profound ways, the presence of the Qatari adventurer and businessman carried particular weight. His Excellency — also Chairman of Musafir.com and High Camp Holding Company — urged graduates to pursue their dreams but don’t forget to live a meaningful life.
“You are never at the top for more than a moment at a time. Power, fame, and money are the tools, not the destination. Chase them if they serve your purpose, but they are not the mountain,” he said. “The mountain is that at the end of your life, someone’s life is better because you are in it.”
A Hard Mountain to Climb
The undergraduate Class of 2026 started college when masks and COVID-19 restrictions still shaped daily life. Over the next four years, they watched wars unfold in Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen, Gaza, and Lebanon, while political changes across the region affected many of their lives personally. For some students, those conflicts were not distant headlines, but realities impacting their families, communities, and classmates.
In their final semester, the war with Iran and Iran’s targeting of the GCC fractured the campus itself, separating students from one another at the moment they should have been celebrating together. The geopolitical map they studied in classrooms shifted beneath their feet in real time. No cohort could have been better placed to understand what was happening — or better prepared to respond.
Peak Performance
At the Tropaia Awards ceremony earlier in the week, student speaker Remas Alhawari, a Palestinian-Jordanian International Politics major, stood before her peers and named what they had all endured. Yet, she told them, none of it diminished what Georgetown had given them.
“The privilege that came with this place will follow you,” she said. “It will sit quietly in the background until you deliver.”
Against everything, the Class of 2026 leaves behind a record that holds under pressure and excels.
Twenty-two students earned honors in the major. Nine were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Two won Schwarzman Scholarships. Graduates will continue their studies at institutions including the University of Cambridge, Sciences Po, Johns Hopkins University, Tsinghua University, and through the Erasmus Mundus Program — destinations that reflect both their high ambitions and broad preparation.
Dean Safwan Masri, who joined GU-Q the same year this class arrived as freshmen and who concludes his own tenure this year, sent graduates off with a charge that wove together the institution’s Jesuit and Islamic traditions.
“The Jesuit ideal of being people for others calls us beyond the narrow borders of the self,” he said. “The Islamic ideals of justice, mercy, duty, and the dignity of knowledge deepen that call. Your education, in this sense, is generational. It prepares you to build futures commensurate with the needs of our time.”
As Dean Masri and the Class of 2026 embark on the next stage of their journeys, they leave behind a legacy that has helped establish Georgetown Qatar as a regional hub of excellence. The university admitted just 9% of applicants into its incoming class this year and saw applications surge 92%, the highest level of interest in GU-Q’s history. And with the offering of a new major in Science, Technology and International Affairs, one of the few programs of its kind in the region, Georgetown Qatar continues to position itself as a proving ground for the next generation of global leaders.
Tropaia Award Winners
Awards
Dean’s Medal Winner
Zarrish Ahmed
Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali Faculty Award
Adelina Stulen
James Reardon-Anderson Memorial Award
Tashafee Masoodi
Ambassador Award
Al-Dana Ahmad Saad Al-Sulaiti
Georgetown Leadership Award
Moza Khalid Al-Hajri
Georgetown Engagement Award
Justin Varick Saupan Pacer
Community in Diversity Award
Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Absar
Blue and Gray Award
Zarrish Ahmed
Culture and Politics Outstanding Student
Lawrence Gabriel Mararac
International Economics Outstanding Student
Mohamed Abdulmajeed Albulushi
International History Outstanding Student
Tashafee Masoodi
International Politics Outstanding Student
Dung Quoc Tran
Certificates
American Studies Certificate
Farkhunda Fazelyar*
Humna Rehan
Arab and Regional Studies Certificate
Kayan Sayed Hemaid Al-Mousawi*
Media and Politics Certificate
Alyaa Fahad M. A. AlAsmakh*
Fatima Mansour Al-Emadi
Hissa Ali Saad Al-Hababi
Remas Alhawari*
Al-Dana Ahmad Saad Al-Sulaiti
Noor Mohamed Al Thani
Shahd Salah S. J. AlSultan
Salma Mohamed Mounir Bayoumy
Maahdiya Hossain
Jaelene Iyman
Raghad Yaser Loubani
Justin Varick Saupan Pacer*
Bayan Saleh Quneibi
Manha Siddiqui
Energy Studies Certificate
Noor Ahmed
Maryam Issa Almohannadi
Mahwash Sarwari*
Mariia Sorokina
South Asian Studies
Zarrish Ahmed
*Outstanding thesis or eportfolio
Latin Honors
summa cum laude
Adnan Said Abu Odeh
Zarrish Ahmed
Mohamed Abdulmajeed Albulushi
Farkhunda Fazelyar
Lawrence Gabriel Mararac
Adelina Stulen
magna cum laude
Moza Khalid Al-Hajri
Bayan Kayyali
Mariia Sorokina
cum laude
Noor Mohamed Al Thani
Rania Harrara
Lena Mahmoud Muhsen
Jessica Ornella Nett
Humna Rehan
Mahwash Sarwari
Honors in the Majors
Ghada Abdulnabi Abdulla
International Politics Honors: “Qatar – Russia Relations: The Presence of Putin In Office”
Faculty mentor: Paul Musgrave
Mohamed Abdulmajeed Albulushi
International Economics Honors: “The Role of Renewable Energy in Mitigating the Impact of Oil Shocks on Economic Growth: Evidence from Cross-Country Panel Local Projections”
Faculty mentor: Emmanouil Chatzikonstantinou
Masouma Solaiman Al-Haidar
International Politics Honors: “The Roots and Impact of Iraq’s Decline: From Regional Leadership to Societal Trauma and Melancholia”
Faculty mentor: Gerd Nonneman and Amira El-Zein
Remas Alhawari
International Politics Honors: “A Tale of Two Hussein’s: Jordanian Popular Memory of the (1990-1991) Gulf War”
Faculty mentor: Nadya Sbaiti
Maryam Khalifa Al-Ibrahim
International Politics Honors: “Strategic Tolerance?: Religious Pluralism and the Soft Power Ambitions of the United Arab Emirates in the 21st Century”
Faculty mentor: Firat Oruc
Noof Ghanim Al-Ibrahim
International Economics Honors: “How Would Qatar’s Economy Respond to Another LNG Price Shock? Evidence from Before and After the 2014–2016 Oil Price Collapse”
Faculty mentor: Jack Rossbach
Ftaim Hamad Alqahtani
International Politics Honors: “Translating Gulf Futurity: State Projects and Cultural Production in Qatar and Saudi Arabia”
Faculty mentor: Nadya Sbaiti
Al-Dana Ahmad Saad Al-Sulaiti
International Politics Honors: “Qatar and the Management of Asymmetric Alliances: MNNA Status, NATO Engagement, and Small-State Strategy”
Faculty mentor: Rory Miller
Honors in the Majors
Maryam Nasser Alsulaiti
International Politics Honors: “The Politics of Expression: Literature and State Power in the Gulf”
Faculty mentor: Magdalena Rostron
Turkia Abdulla Ahmed Al Thani
International History Honors: “Our Blind and Obstinate Enemy: Algerian Solidarity with the Vietnamese (1955-1968)”
Faculty mentor: Karine Walther
Rania Harrara
International Politics Honors: “The Occupied Body: Sexual Violence as a Logic of Settler-Colonial Governance in Palestine”
Faculty mentor: Erin Kilbride
Maahdiya Hossain
International Politics Honors: “Explaining Regime Change in Bangladesh: Insights from Global Frameworks”
Faculty mentor: Amanda Garrett
Aras Karlıdağ
International Politics Honors: “Escaping Exclusion: Gas Cooperation, Regional Realignment, and Turkish Responses in the Eastern Mediterranean”
Faculty mentor: Rory Miller
Bayan Kayyali
International Politics Honors: “The Syrian Diaspora After Assad’s Fall: Will They Return or Engage from Afar?”
Faculty mentor: Amanda Garrett
Anupa Khanal
International Economics Honors: “Tracing Economic Recovery After Nepal’s 2015 Earthquake: Evidence on Local-Level Caste-Based Heterogeneity”
Faculty mentor: Emmanouil Chatzikonstantinou
Tashafee Masoodi
International History Honors: “Dancing in the Durbar: A History of Sex Work in Dogra-ruled Kashmir (1846-1947)”
Faculty mentor: Trish Kahle
Honors in the Majors
Iqra Nadeem
International Economics Honors: “Maternal Education, Antenatal Care Utilisation, and Child Mortality in Pakistan: A Cross-Wave Analysis, 1991–2017”
Faculty mentor: Jack Rossbach
Iman Zohra Nait Chalal
International Politics Honors: “Françafrique en Rupture: Rethinking Alliance Theory through Burkina Faso and Senegal”
Faculty mentor: Rory Miller
Marjona Nurullaeva
International Politics Honors: “Uzbekistan’s Foreign Policy Approach in the Russia-China-U.S. Power Struggle for Central Asia”
Faculty mentor: Paul Musgrave
Mariana Pereira de Souza
Culture and Politics Honors “Handmade Histories: Cinematic Reinvention of Heritage in Global Luxury Fashion”
Faculty mentor: Firat Oruc
Nafisa Sagdullaeva
International Politics Honors: “Presidential Transformation and the New Diplomacy of a Silk Road State in Uzbekistan after 2016”
Faculty mentor: Mehran Kamrava
Ishfak Farhan Siyam
International Politics Honors: “From Structured Incumbent Dominance to Civic Rupture: State–Society Transformation and the July 2024 Uprising in Bangladesh (2009–2024)”
Faculty mentor: Mehran Kamrava
Adelina Stulen
International Politics Honors: “Geopolitical Implications of Russia’s “Frozen Conflicts” in the Black Sea Region”
Faculty mentor: Paul Musgrave
Sinphaxay Thongsombath
International Politics Honors: “Returning Home: The Social Remittances of Lao Migrant Workers Returning from the Republic of Korea (South Korea)”
Faculty mentor: Amanda Garrett
More About the Class of 2026
Watch the full Ceremony
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