Tawfiq grew up in Beit Sahour, a city near Bethlehem, with his mother, father and two sisters.

Graduating from Greek Catholic Patriarchate School with a grade of 98%, Tawfiq was an impressive and top-performing student throughout his education. Tawfiq participated in the Bridge Palestine programme, where he improved his English proficiency, essay writing and critical thinking skills enabling him to apply to universities abroad. AMIDEAST and Altaawon helped with his college applications and then Tawfiq was accepted into Western Michigan University.   

Tawfiq decided he wanted to study abroad following an exchange programme at school where he moved to Germany for one month. Meeting students from Canada, Russia, China, Paraguay, Mexico and many other nationalities inspired Tawfiq to apply to universities across the world. “It was amazing to get to know other cultures and to represent Palestine and its culture to other people who didn’t know what Palestine really is.”

When Tawfiq was at Bridge Palestine, he was told that they do not offer scholarships, so he began searching for organisations that did. After sending masses of emails and always receiving the same reply; "we are sorry, but we do not offer scholarships right now" Tawfiq was close to giving up. One day Tawfiq found a video about a student from Bethlehem that was awarded a scholarship with "Education USA". Tawfiq immediately sent Education USA an email. Worried he was too late for the application, just two days prior to the closing date "Education USA" confirmed that Tawfiq had received a scholarship with the Bseisu Foundation. “I was so very happy to hear that, I could not even believe it!”

Tawfiq studies Computer Engineering at Western Michigan University and he is passionate about seizing every opportunity. As a freshman Tawfiq has already completed a research paper on Infertility in Men Caused by Radiation Emitted from WiFi Devices. In this paper, Tawfiq focused on developing techniques to avoid problems caused by radiation from smart phones and laptop computers. Tawfiq hopes to combine his interests: biology, physics and computers, to develop a career in biomedical engineering. Tawfiq has distant plans to return to Palestine and help create devices to combat medical problems.