Mariam Al-Mozian

Al-Shabaka Mariam Al-Mozian

Al-Shabaka policy member Mariam Al-Mozian lives in Gaza and holds a PhD in Political Science from the Institute of Arab Research and Studies. She previously worked as media officer at the General Union of Palestinian Women and as an adjunct professor at Al-Quds Open University in Rafah. Her work specializes in assessing civil society institutions’ programs and their suitability for the Palestinian context, including research on the role of civil society institutions in empowering young women leaders.

Majd Kayyal

Al-Shabaka Majd Kayyal

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Majd Kayyal was born in Haifa in 1990 to a displaced family from Barwa village. He studied philosophy and political science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Kayyal writes for Al-Safir’s supplement printed in Beirut. He has published political and literary articles in several publications and newspapers, and has maintained a personal blog since 2010. His first novel, “The Tragedy of Mr. Matar,” won the Abdel Mohsin Al-Qattan Foundation’s Young Writer Award for 2015.

Maisa Shquier

Al-Shabaka Maisa Shquier

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Maisa Shquier is an activist and D.Phil candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex/UK. Her ethnographic research investigates the intersection between gender, sexuality, nation, body politics and embodiment. Specifically, it examines the gendered and sexualized representations of Palestine, through a discourse analysis of the “New Historians” and the visual images of Palestine. She has 10 years of development experience with local and International NGOs in monitoring and evaluating projects in gender, disability, health, food security, water and sanitation and civil society. She has worked on policy formation on gender, disability, sexuality, masculinity, and women’s political participation in the Middle East.

Maha Nassar

Al-Shabaka 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 PostThe ConversationMiddle East Report and elsewhere.

M. Muhannad Ayyash 

Al-Shabaka M. Muhannad Ayyash

M. Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds, before immigrating to Canada, where he is now Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is the author of A Hermeneutics of Violence (UTP, 2019). He has published several articles in journals such as Interventions, the European Journal of International RelationsComparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the European Journal of Social Theory. He has written opinion pieces for Al-JazeeraThe BafflerMiddle East EyeMondoweissThe Breach, and Middle East Monitor. He is currently writing a book on settler colonial sovereignty in Palestine/Israel.

Loubna Qutami

Al-Shabaka Loubna Qutami

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Loubna Qutami is a Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. She has a PhD from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Qutami is also the former Executive Director of the Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC) in San Francisco as well as a founder, member, and the former International General Coordinator for the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). 

 

 

Layth Hanbali

Al-Shabaka Layth Hanbali

Layth Hanbali is a freelance consultant focusing on health policy. He has also worked as a researcher, public health practitioner, and doctor, volunteered as a civil society organiser, and taught on several Global Health programmes. He earned a Master’s degree in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a medical degree and a bachelor’s degree in Global Health from University College London.

Laila el-Haddad

Al-Shabaka Laila el-Haddad

Laila el-Haddad is a Maryland-based freelance journalist, author, political analyst, and parent-of-two from Gaza. From 2003-2007, she was Gaza correspondent for the Al-Jazeera English website and a regular contributor to the BBC World Service. She is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between, named for the award-winning blog she has authored since 2004, and was a contributor to The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books January 2011) and author of the forthcoming Gaza Kitchen. She has been published in The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, and has been a guest on WUNC, WBUR and CNN. She is also a columnist for the Guardian’s Comment is Free. She is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Kifah Abdul Halim

Al-Shabaka Kifah Abdul Halim

Kifah Abdul Halim is a Palestinian journalist, translator, and activist. She began her career as a political and media advisor and worked with several NGOs, serving inter-alia as the Director of the Occupied Territories Department at Physicians for Human Rights. In recent years, she has focused her career on journalism, leading context and investigative reports for newspapers and digital platforms as well as for feature documentaries. She is the Editor of “Alasa’a” – an independent critical electronic magazine – and works with various Palestinian cultural institutions, producing festivals, concerts, writers’ and artists’ residencies, and other programs.