Dr. Rema M. Amawi
About
Dr. Rema Amawi serves as the Biology & Chemistry Coordinator at RIT Dubai.
She prides herself on her over 14 years of teaching experience. She currently teaches a wide variety of Chemistry and Biology courses offered at RIT-Dubai, including General and Analytical Chemistry courses, as well as General, Cellular and Molecular Biology, and Ecosystem Ecology courses.
She began her career at RIT-Dubai in 2015, as a faculty member teaching Chemistry and Biology, and expanded RIT-Dubai’s science offerings, both lectures and labs, which she actively oversees and supports. Prior to that, Dr. Rema taught at the American University of Sharjah, UAE and Batterjee Medical College for Sciences and Technology, Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Rema graduated with a Ph.D. in Color Science from RIT’s main campus in Rochester, NY. Her dissertation was on the Effects of Pill Colors on Human Perception and Expectation of Drugs’ Efficacy. She earned her MS degree in inorganic chemistry from Baylor University, Texas, and her thesis was on Synthesis, crystallization, and characterization of Silver (I) Salts with Amino Phosphines and Coordination Polymers. She also holds a BS degree in Biochemistry from Wichita State University, Kansas.
Dr. Rema’s research resulted in the development of a tool to help identify the most suitable pill color for pharmaceutical companies and medical practitioners to better design and prescribe medications, with the hope of maximizing the drug's expected efficacy on patients and increasing compliance rates. The tool can be found on her website: www.colorinpharma.com.
- Doctor of Philosophy in Color Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, USA
- Master of Science in Chemistry, Baylor University, Texas, USA
- Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry, Wichita State University, Kansas, USA
- Selected as the graduate delegate for the College of Science by the dean, and invited to speak at the RIT NY 2022 graduation ceremony for the College of Science.
- Nominated by the Chair of Sciences & Liberal Arts Department for the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2020-2021.
- Nominated by the Vice President of Academic Affair for the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2019-2020.
Dr. Rema Amawi has a wide variety of research interests, and is currently involved in multiple research projects, exploring different avenues in the field of science:
- Use of neural networks and machine learning in the medical field.
- The effects of pill colors on human perception (based on studying a variety of demographics) and expectation in relation to the expected efficacies of medicine, as well as color emotions, color meanings, and color associations.
- Inorganic synthesis of multidimensional coordination networks, containing transition-metal salts with phosphines ligands, and their potential applications in the fields of catalysis, molecular recognition, molecular sieving, separations, and non-linear optics.
- Al-Hussaeni, K.; Karamitsos, I.; Adewumi, E.; Amawi, R., 2023. CNN-based Pill Image Recognition for Retrieval Systems. Pharmacy. Applied Sciences. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13085050
- Psychology Today - Could Pill Color Matter? - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-innovator-next-door/202212/could-pill-color-matter
- Amawi, R. & Murdoch, M., 2022. Relating Color Associations to Pill Colors and Expected Efficacy. CIC30. https://doi.org/10.2352/CIC.2022.30.1.11
- Amawi, R. & Murdoch, M., 2022. Understanding Color Associations and Their Effects on Expectations of Drugs’ Efficacies. Pharmacy. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy10040082.
- Amawi, R. & Murdoch, M., 2022. Effects of pill colors on human perception and expectation of drugs' efficacy. Color Research and Application. https://doi.org/10.1002/col.22798
- PhD Thesis: Color in Pharma: Color Associations and Expected Efficacies (May 2022)
- Dr. Rema’s research resulted in the development of a tool to help identify the most suitable pill color for pharmaceutical companies and medical practitioners to better design and prescribe medications, with the hope of maximizing the drug's expected efficacy on patients and increasing compliance rates. The tool can be found on her website: www.colorinpharma.com.
- STEM Magazine - The Pandemic Has Shown Us That We Can Put No Boundaries on Education: https://stem-magazine.com/the-pandemic-has-shown-us-that-we-can-put-no-boundaries-on-education/
- MS Thesis: Synthesis, crystallization, and characterization of Silver (I) Salts with Amino Phosphines and Coordination Polymers (March 2008)
- Experimental & Computational Investigation of Metal Ion-Thymine Complexes. (March 2005)
Dr. Rema Amawi serves as the Biology & Chemistry Coordinator at RIT Dubai.