About Me

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My name is Shahm Sha'ar (my preferred spelling). I was born in Aleppo, Syria, on November 8th of 1998.

My father Ahmad Adib was a computer science researcher and professor. My Mother Sawsan is a civil engineer.

I have six older siblings, I am the youngest. By descending order of age: Rama, Lara, Nour, Al Hakam, Karam, and Mahmoud. I was raised by them as much as I was raised by my parents.

I lived in Abha, Saudi Arabia, between ages four and eight, but I lived and grew up in Aleppo for most of my life.

I was raised in a household where learning and academic achievement were the rule and the norm. I learned English from a very young age, which was a byproduct of my father's graduate studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. I devoured English-language films, books, TV shows, and video games.

The Syrian revolution began in 2011 and I was too young to have any real understanding of what was happening around me. As the war escalated and reached Aleppo in 2013, I was beginning to realize that I was part of a population which had been oppressed by an authoritarian regime for over 50 years and which was finally speaking up and marching in the streets for its rights, and that my life was about to radically change. 

My family engaged in peaceful protest, but we could not continue to do so when peaceful protestors were being killed by the government, daily, by the hundreds and thousands, all across our country. My siblings left the country one by one to distant corners of the globe, pursuing higher studies or marriages. My parents and I were forced to leave our house, and we were internally displaced four times. All my siblings had left the country by the end of 2013, but my parents and I stayed in Aleppo for as long as we could, which would turn out to be until June of 2014. The private Al-Mamun University in which my father was a professor was shut down in early 2013, so although we had been part of the lucky minority of Syrians that had enough income to live dignified lives up until that point, we no longer had any income, and we were quickly depleting our savings. 

My father was searching for work abroad, and he found the International Institute of Education's Scholar-Rescue Fund, whose mission was connecting scholars in imminent danger with institutions in Europe and America. My father was accepted to the program, and he was matched with Salisbury University in Maryland, U.S.  Because the U.S. had ceased all diplomatic relations with Syria, we had to go to Turkey to apply for our visas. Luckily, my brother Al Hakam had already been living in Sile, Tukey, for over a year now, teaching English at Isik University, we had a place to go to. One terrifying microbus journey from Aleppo to the Turkish border later, and we had finally made it to safety. 

I look back on my time in Turkey with immense fondness (despite a particularly awful experience at the American embassy in Ankara); even after all my travels, to this day I maintain that Istanbul is the greatest city on Earth.

I finished high school in Maryland, and attained my Bachelor of Science Diploma in Computer Science from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Knox College, despite the cold, is an amazing place. (Warning: a cheesy sentiment is in the next line) It is a place where the people genuinely care about each other's well-being.  A true liberal-arts college, the education I received there is best-described as eclectic and well-rounded. I made many incredible friends there. I owe much to my advisor Professor Jaime Spacco, who was incredibly supportive throughout my time at the College, which included my father's passing, and quite a bit of financial turmoil.

I now live in Houston, Texas, with my Brother Mahmoud (who is a software engineer as well) and our mother. Most recently, I worked at Invesco, Ltd in Houston as an Advanced Software Engineer for one year.