Zarefa Ali
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Zarefa Ali received her MA degree from Birzeit University in International Studies with a concentration in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies.
Yassmine Hamayel
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Yassmine Saleh Hamayel is working on gender and security in Ramallah, and is active in the Palestinian youth movement. Her areas of interest include democratization, development, youth, and refugees.
Toufic Haddad
Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American writer based in Jerusalem. He is the co-author and editor of Between the Lines: Readings in Israel, the Palesinians, and the U.S. ‘War on Terror‘. (Haymarket Books, 2007, co-written with Israeli author Tikva Honig-Parnass) and Towards a New Internationalism: Readings in Globalization, the Global Justice Movement and Palestinian Liberation (Muwatin: Ramallah 2006, [Arabic] co- written with Ala el Azzeh.) His writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been featured in The National, Al Jazeera English (web), Journal of Palestine Studies, Monthly Review Zine, Znet, Counterpunch, International Socialist Review, and Socialist Worker.
Thayer Hastings
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Thayer Hastings is a graduate student at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City where he is studying anthropology of the Arab world. He holds an M.A. degree from the Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. After completing a B.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle, he returned to Palestine, where he carried out research and advocacy in law and human rights. Thayer worked with Palestinian and international non-governmental organizations, including BADIL Resource Center and the American Friends Service Committee. His research and writing continue to be informed by a commitment to community-led initiatives and decolonizing methodologies.
Shatha Abdulsamad
Shatha Abdulsamad is pursuing her MA in International Human Rights Law and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo. She previously worked as a political officer for the British Consulate General in Jerusalem and as programme manager at the German think-tank Friedrich-Ebert Foundation. Her field of expertise includes political analysis, human rights, and strategic political communication. She holds a higher diploma in Strategic and Political Communication from Birzeit University, a master’s degree in Business Management from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from Birzeit University.
Samer Abdelnour
Samer Abdelnour is an academic and activist. He co-founded Al-Shabaka in 2009 and served as a founding board member until 2016.
Sabrien Amrov
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Sabrien Amrov is pursuing her Ph.D. in Human Geography at the University of Toronto. In 2013, she earned her master’s degree in International Relations, with Honours, from the University of Ottawa. Her MA thesis on the Security Sector Reform in the West Bank was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2011, she earned her Honours Bachelors in Conflict Studies and Human Rights with a Minor in Arabic Language and Culture from the same university. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Middle East Monitor, Rabble and TRT World.
Randa Farah
Randa Farah is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario, Anthropology Department. Dr. Farah has written on Palestinian popular memory and reconstructions of identity based on her fieldwork in a refugee camp in Jordan. She was a Research Associate at the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Moyen-Orient Contemporain (CERMOC), in Jordan, where she conducted research on Palestinian refugees and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). She held different positions as Visiting Fellow and an Associate Researcher at the Refugee Studies Center (RSC) at the University of Oxford.
Raed Eshnaiwer
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Raed Eshnaiwer is a PhD candidate at Universite Libre de Bruxelles, in Political Science, European Studies and Area Studies. Raed’s research focuses on the impact of forced migration on the identity of the state: Syrian refugees in Jordan as a case study.
