Linah al-Banna
Linah al-Banna is a Child Psychologist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
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).
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 Relations, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the European Journal of Social Theory. He has written opinion pieces for Al-Jazeera, The Baffler, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, The Breach, and Middle East Monitor. He is currently writing a book on settler colonial sovereignty in Palestine/Israel.
Maha Abdallah
Maha Abdallah is an international advocacy officer at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. She is formerly a senior legal researcher and advocacy officer at Al-Haq, focusing on business and human rights and corporate accountability in occupied territory and conflict-affected settings. Maha holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Center for Human Rights.
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.
Mai Abu Moghli
Mai Abu Moghli is senior researcher and Co-Principle Investigator in the Education in Emergencies Program at the Centre for Lebanese Studies. She received a PhD in human rights education from UCL’s Institute of Education and an MA in human rights from the University of Essex. Her work focuses on critical approaches to human rights education, teacher professional development, refugee education, and decolonizing research and higher education. She has worked in a number of academic institutions in the UK, Lebanon, and Palestine, and has published on the legal status of Syrian Palestinian refugees, Palestinian teachers’ activism, the professional development of teachers in the context of mass displacement, and on decolonial research ethics and methods.
Khalil Shaheen
Khalil Shaheen is a Palestinian Journalist, media expert, researcher, and well-known political and media analyst. He is currently the director of research and policies and board member at Masarat – The Palestine Center for Policy Research and Strategic studies in Ramallah. Since 1981, he has served as a journalist, editor and researcher at several institutions, newspapers and magazines in Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Jordan and Palestine, since 1981. His articles and policy studies are widely published.
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.
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.
