Maha Nassar
Al-Shabaka Member Maha Nassar is an assistant professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. She holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Her book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017) examines how Palestinian intellectuals in Israel have connected to global decolonization movements through literary and journalistic writings. Nassar is also a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project. Her pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, The Conversation, Middle East Report and elsewhere.
Kareem Rabie
Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Kareem Rabie, is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His research focuses on privatization, urban development, and the state-building project in the West Bank, which culminated in his first book, Palestine is Throwing a Party and the Whole World is Invited (Duke University Press, 2021). Rabie’s new work examines the political economy and human geographies of Palestine/China trade. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago, and Marie Curie Fellow/Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS).
Jeremy Wildeman
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Jeremy Wildeman is a Research Associate at the University of Bath’s “Department of Social and Policy Sciences” where he is carrying out research on donor policy towards the Palestinians. Previously he completed a PhD on Canadian and foreign development aid towards the Palestinians, and has collaborated on a number of past research projects on Palestinian development, economy and NGOs. He also has substantial past experience with the Palestinian NGO sector, including co-founding the Nablus-based youth development charity ”Project Hope.”
Joanna Springer
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Joanna Springer is a researcher on development policy and governance reform in the Middle East. She has carried out research and worked for local organizations in Morocco, Qatar and the West Bank. Currently, Joanna is research advisor for a rule of law advancement project in the Arab Gulf. She holds a Master’s of Public Policy and Administration from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with a focus in economic development.
Jehad Abusalim
Jehad Abusalim is currently a PhD student in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. His main area of research is Palestinian and Arab perceptions of the Zionist project and the Jewish question before 1948. He also studies the political and social history of the Gaza Strip and the impacts of the Palestinian Nakba, and how it radically impacted the political, social, demographic, and economic realities of Gaza.
Inès Abdel Razek
Inès Abdel Razek is the Executive Director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD) and its digital platform Rabet, an independent Palestinian organization focusing on international mobilization and digital campaigning for Justice, Freedom and Equality. From 2019 to 2022, Inès was the Advocacy Director of the PIPD, helping to develop the political networks and international advocacy pillar of the organization. Prior to joining the PIPD, Inès held policy advisor positions in the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona, the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi and the Palestinian Prime Minister’s Office in Ramallah, where she advised executive leadership on international aid for development policies. Inès is also a board member of the social enterprise BuildPalestine, Advisory board member of Palestine DeepDive, and policy member at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from Sciences-Po, Paris. Twitter: @InesAbdelrazek
Irene Calis
Irene Calis is a de-colonial scholar, educator, and organizer in the department of Critical Race, Gender, & Culture Studies at American University, DC, where she is also the Director of Arab World Studies. Her research and activism, grounded in the Palestinian liberation struggle, focuses on emancipatory politics from the perspective of everyday life. Her current work on emancipatory futures situates the Palestinian struggle in a wider conversation with the global South, and in particular with indigenous-settler experience and intellectual thought. Calis holds a PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics & Political Science.
Hazem Jamjoum
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Hazem Jamjoum is a graduate student in Modern Middle East History at New York University. His writing has focused on political-economy approaches to Israeli colonialism and Palestinian elite formation, and critiques of partition-based conflict management “solutions,” among other areas.
Hanna Alshaikh
Al-Shabaka Member Hanna Alshaikh is an adjunct professor at DePaul University, teaching courses on political Islam, the intersections of religion and politics in the Middle East, and Islamic thought. Hanna is also a research fellow at the American Friends Service Committee, working on an oral history project on the Palestinian diasporic narrative, activism, immigration, and intergenerational issues. She holds a BA from DePaul University, where she double majored in Islamic World Studies and Arabic, and earned her MA from the University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Her research focused on social and intellectual history in the late Ottoman Palestine.
