My name is Jaimic Eckert and I’ve been into volunteer work since childhood. As a girl, I volunteered at animal shelters, played music at nursing homes, and helped with community cleanup after disasters. In college, I volunteered heavily at a large yearly conference for young adults, which is where I fell in love with my husband-to-be, who was on my team of co-volunteers. Since getting married in 2013, we’ve been living in Beirut, Lebanon. I actually have an online coaching business but I’ve had many opportunities to volunteer with projects for Syrian refugees(难民) and youth education.

Volunteering has been a way of life for me for a very long time, and I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy it. Most of the time, you do feel that you’re making a difference. Once I was leading out a project that provided food boxes to Syrian refugee families. When it was nearing Ramadan, the biggest holiday season in Islam, I literally stuffed the food package with extra treats... dates, nuts, olive oil and sweets. We took the package unannounced and ended up arriving just as the Syrian family was sitting down on their floor for breakfast.They had nothing more than a few pieces of bread and a pot of tea. The mother was in tears as she received us. I’ll never forget their gratitude.

Another time, back when I was in college in the US, a group of friends and I volunteered to drive to a distant church that was way out in the suburb and had only a few elderly members. The building was in disrepair and the church yard needed attention. We stayed the weekend in the home of one of these old ladies so we could clean and repair the church. I’ll never forget how new life sparkled in her eyes. She couldn’t repair broken doors or pull weeds. but her love for us was unmatched. It breaks my heart to remember this old lady beaming with joy for such small efforts that we made. Sometimes, volunteer work is fulfilling not because of the actual job you get done, but because of how your presence impacts the people around you.

Volunteering makes me a better person because it gets me outside of myself. It puts my focus on others. It makes me grateful for what I have.

Though it’s common that new scientists get international experience as part of their postdoctoral work, acquiring international exposure during one’s PhD study is less common. But it can be rewarding.

I’m in the final year of my PhD course in experimental physics. The PhD program is based at Loughborough University, the UK, but a big part of my experimental work is at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Coming from England just after my bachelor’s degree in physics was a big step and somewhat risky. I wasn’t sure if it would help my career or suit my personal style. I was faced with a number of questions.

My supervisors (导师), one in England and one in Germany, gave me great freedom to pick research topics and carry out my research at another institute.

I was excited about going to the Max Planck Institute. Once the long road of the PhD is complete, I hope to have the confidence to compete in an increasingly multinational field in order to secure postdoctoral positions. Although moving abroad means reduced contact with my home university and research community, attending conferences in Britain has helped me network and develop a sense of community.

It took some time to settle down, find an apartment, and get used to the local life, surroundings and a different language. In the lab, a simple task was complicated by the language barrier. Still, with persistence, it was an enriching experience both personally and professionally. The Max Planck Institute provided not only an exciting environment, but enough funding that helped expand the output of my research considerably. I had access to equipment and resources hard to find at many institutions.

Thus far, I have no regrets. Doing a PhD abroad has improved my knowledge of physics and clarified my career aspirations (抱负).

Francis Kéré appears on the screen in a loose white Oxford shirt and an enormous, slightly amazed smile. “Can you imagine?” the newest Pritzker Architecture Prize winner says. “I was born in a little village in Burkina Faso where there was no school then. And my father wanted me to learn how to read and write very simply because then I could then translate or read him his letters.”

The first African winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize had already received numerous awards in his field, but Kéré was as surprised as anyone else to be selected for the field’s most famous prize. “Francis Kéré is pioneering architecture — sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants — in lands of extreme scarcity,” said committee chair, Tom Pritzker, in a statement. “He is equally architect and servant, improving upon the lives and experiences of countless citizens in a region of the world that is at times forgotten. Through buildings that demonstrate beauty, modesty, boldness and invention, Kéré gracefully deserves this Prize.”

Kéré says his architectural practice was inspired by his own experience attending school with around 100 other children in a region where temperatures are regularly higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “You will sit and it’s very hot inside,” he said. “And there was no light, while outside, the sunlight was strong and in my head the idea one day grew that as an adult, I should make it better. I was thinking about space, about room, about how I can feel better.”

In his designs for Gando Primary School and Naaba Belem Goumma Secondary School in Burkina Faso, Kéré drew on traditional building materials and emphasized shade and shadows with well-ventilated (通风良好的) spaces that reduce the need for air conditioning.

When he was twenty, in 1985, Kéré earned a vocational scholarship to study carpentry in Berlin. But while absorbed in the practicality of roofing and furniture making, he also attended night school and was admitted to Technische Universität Berlin, from which he graduated in 2004 with an advanced degree in architecture. He was still a student when he designed and built Gando Primary School. It turned out to be a springboard for his career and still guides his ethos (理念) today.