University of Richmond senior Amina Tayyab says conducting scientific research is something of a rarity for young women in Pakistan, her home country.

“Some of the professors are supportive,” she said, “but some of them ask,`Why are you doing this? Eventually you are going to get married.’ We have to change the mindset of some people that women cannot handle two things together.”

For six weeks this summer, she is one of two young Pakistani women attending the University of Richmond through the Sister2Sister Exchange Program, which is supported by the State Department and led by American University. They were among 23 students selected from over 2,047 applications for the prestigious program.

Senior Ibtisam Naqvi is studying cosmology with her mentor, physics professor Ted Bunn, while Tayyab is focused on virology with her mentor, biology and biochemistry professor Eugene Wu.

“A program like this is a valuable steppingstone for students looking for a research career,” Wu said. “Graduate schools that look at lots of applications from students all over the world want to see a student who’s already knowledgeable about the research process and can demonstrate the ability to succeed in an environment that’s similar to what they’ll see in graduate school.”

Tayyab and Naqvi, who both hope to attend graduate school and become full-time researchers, are excited by the opportunity. At UR, more than 100 science students take advantage of full-time research opportunities each summer.

“If you want to understand what it’s like to do research, and you really want to get somewhere in a project, you need sustained time to focus on it,” said Bunn, the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in the Liberal Arts. “One of the things I’m proudest of, and that we do best here, is work with students on research.”

Both students are contributing to research underway in their mentors’ labs. Tayyab is researching Tupanvirus, a giant virus discovered in 2017. These can be up to 1,000 times larger than a regular virus and carry genes capable of DNA repair and replication. Naqvi is exploring computer simulations of microwave background radiation, the oldest light in the universe.

This is the second year that UR has participated in the Sister2Sister program. Chemistry professors Carol Parish and Kelling Donald mentored the students in 2022.

Like the other partner universities, UR is providing two undergraduate-level course scholarships to the students, covering their residential stay along with tuition, food, and housing.

The program matches Pakistani female STEM students to universities in the U.S. to encourage them to overcome cultural limitations to pursuing their careers. Many come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The experience is Tayyab’s first time to being away from home and living in a residential hall. One of the program’s organizers questioned how she’d fare: “How are you going to survive this?” Tayyab, emotion still in her voice, replied: “It would be my first experience — let me do it!’”

Both students’ families encouraged their interests, although Naqvi’s family wondered why she studied math instead of biology. In Pakistan, she said, there’s an expectation that “if you are a good student, you should be a doctor. So, I stood up for myself, and my parents agreed, because they wanted me to do something that I like to do.”

In addition to their research, the students have enjoyed group trips in Richmond to Maymont Park and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. A trip to Washington, D.C. is planned. Both have made friends with UR students and enjoy eating in the D-Hall with the halal dish, “Spider chicken,” a particular favorite.  

Naqvi said that when she first arrived here, “I said to Amina to pinch me, because where we come from, it’s like a dream come true to be in the U.S.”