Education and Early Career
Son of Hanna and Jamileh, Salem Khamis was born on November 22, 1919, in Reineh village, in British controlled Palestine. He finished high school in 1938 with distinction at the Arab College in Jerusalem. He received a British Mandate scholarship for studying at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he received in 1941 a BA degree in Mathematics (major) and Physics (minor), and in 1942 an MA in Physics.
From 1942-1943, Salem taught at the Akka High School in Acre and St Lucas High School in Haifa. In 1943 he was appointed a lecturer in the Mathematics Department at AUB. In 1945 he received a British Council scholarship for a PhD at University College London. He defended his thesis during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus (Nakba), and received the PhD title in 1950.
Khamis became known for his political activities among student communities, especially his advocacy for dispossessed Palestinian people. In 1948 he was refused entrance to the new State of Israel, in whose territory Reineh now lay. Instead, he moved to Aleppo, Syria, where he lectured Applied Mathematics in the Engineering College of Syria University (now University of Damascus), and was appointed head of the Mathematics department.
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