...with children in 1980, when he served as a summer camp director in Bear Mountain State Park (NY). After earning a degree in Sociology at SUNY Binghamton, he worked as a sous chef, a school bus driver, a development director for a non-profit and a cinema projectionist. In 1995, he earned a Masters in Education from Temple University.

After five years as a high school teacher and grants administrator with The School District of Philadelphia, he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned his Principal Certificate as well as a Master of Science degree in Educational Administration.

Over the years, Gamal has facilitated school planning, professional development, and program enrichment for charter, independent and traditional public schools in Philadelphia, across the U.S. and in Morocco. He is presently teaching and co-writing science and history curricula at Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. Both curricula emphasize student-centered, project-based learning. Gamal also sponsors the ski and yoga clubs. In 2008, he was a finalist for the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2011 Gamal received the NSTA National Award for Inquiry- based Science Education.

As a teacher, Gamal enjoys helping his students develop the critical and creative thinking skills he believes are important to sustaining our civil democracy. He is especially proud of his students’ work in the African American history classes he has taught, which have employed ethnomusicology projects to examine liberty and equality as they relate to the US Constitution and African American history.