By Patricia Waldron
On


Coming to Cornell was an easy decision for Maryam Albakry '26. 

As the fourth child of Egyptian immigrants, growing up in New York City, her father had dreamed of attending the hotel school. He never realized his dream, but her older brother, Hady Albakry '20, graduated with a degree in computer science. “I had always grown up thinking Cornell was the best school,” she said. 

Deciding on a major was harder, but Albakry knew she could pursue any and all of her academic interests at Cornell. “I really wanted to go to a school that felt like a playground – in a sense, you could explore anything,” she said.  

Ultimately, Albakry decided on information science – a degree that spans her deep interests in technology and making a positive impact in people's lives. After graduation, she will apply her degree as a project manager at an industrials company in Los Angeles.

Albakry said she feels well-prepared for her next step. One of her favorite classes was Project Management (INFO 4125), where she and her teammates worked on a semester-long project to develop a mock startup idea. 

In addition to discovering information science, Albakry took full advantage of the "playground" at Cornell to explore a range of extracurricular activities.

She never pictured herself working in academia, but when a question about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – formerly known as food stamps – piqued her interest, she decided to dig into a research project with Allison Koenecke, assistant professor of information science at Cornell Tech, and Gili Vidan, assistant professor of information science.

Currently, SNAP recipients use a card with a magnetic strip, which makes it easy for scammers to "skim" the number and access the money. To reduce fraud, the U.S. government has proposed a pilot program to allow SNAP recipients to make purchases using their phones. As someone whose family once relied on those benefits when she was younger and who accessed them as a college student, she began investigating how this change might impact users who are more or less tech savvy.

Empowered by exploration, guided by passion.

a female student with tan skin and long curly dark hair writes on white board with the reflection of her

I am always so struck when I meet someone new at Cornell and I'm like, wow, you've had a totally different experience than me. That's not unique to me. I think it's unique to everyone at Cornell.

Maryam Albakry '26
Information Science

Her investigation into this question turned into her senior honors thesis, and the team plans to publish their findings.

“That's been a really personally fulfilling part of being at Cornell,” she said.

Albakry also found fulfillment as a teaching assistant for Introduction to Computing (CS 1110). “I took the class and just absolutely fell in love with it," she said, adding that she liked the creativity of coding video games and writing software programs. “I didn’t think I’d ever be capable of this,” she said. “I wanted to instill that same joy into other people.” 

To expand her impact, Albakry served as the president of The Wardrobe, a group that loans free professional clothing to students and hosts annual pop-up shops to give away donated new and used pieces. She also served as the creative director for MENA, a Cornell magazine that seeks to uplift the voices of women from the Middle East and North Africa, and drew on her backpacking experience to teach backpacking and backcountry cooking with Cornell Outdoor Education.

Through her exploration of the Cornell "playground" and her experiences helping others, Albakry has managed to create a college experience she can only describe as "unique."

“I am always so struck when I meet someone new at Cornell and I'm like, ‘Wow, you've had a totally different experience than me,’" she said. "That's not unique to me. I think it's unique to everyone at Cornell." 

 


Patricia Waldron is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

Photography by Zoe Ku '27, Digital Content Producer

Explore more graduate stories.