Sawsan Abdulrahim (AUB) - Advisor
Sawsan Abdulrahim is an Associate Professor of Public Health in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut. She received her PhD in health behavior and health education from the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on social inequalities and health, and the structural conditions that influence the wellbeing of women refugees and labor migrants. Abdulrahim is currently undertaking research on the health of Syrian refugee adolescent girls in Lebanon, with an emphasis on sexual and reproductive health. She teaches courses in health promotion theory, forced migration and health, and global public health.
Gilbert Achcar (SOAS) – Lead External Advisor
Gilbert Achcar is a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. He has degrees in Philosophy (ESL, Beirut), Social Sciences (UL, Beirut) and a PhD in Social History/International Relations (University of Paris-VIII). Before joining SOAS, he taught and/or researched in various universities and research centres in Beirut, Berlin and Paris. His books include: The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder (2002, 2006); Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky (2007, 2008); The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010); Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism (2013); The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2013); and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (2016).
Adam Hanieh (SOAS) – Advisor
Adam Hanieh is a Reader of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. His research interests include political economy of the Middle East; labour migration; class and state formation in the Gulf Cooperation Council; Palestine. Prior to joining SOAS, Adam taught at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates. From 1997-2003, he worked in the NGO and public sectors in Ramallah, Palestine, where he completed an MA in Regional Studies at Al Quds University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from York University. He is an international advisory board member for the journal Studies in Political Economy.
Deniz Kandiyoti (SOAS) – Advisor
Deniz Kandiyoti is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at SOAS, University of London. She is an author and an academic of research in the fields of gender relations and developmental politics in the Middle East, specifically Turkey. Her work on gender and Islam, especially in post-colonial and rural development areas, has been influential throughout the entire field. She has pioneered new research into understanding the implications of Islam and state policy on women, and as a result, has brought more attention to the field. She holds a PhD from London School of Economics. She is the author of Concubines, Sisters and Citizens: Identities and Social Transformation (1997) the editor of Fragments of Culture: The Everyday of Modern Turkey (2002), Gendering the Middle East (1996), Women, Islam and the State (1991) Deniz is the editor of the journal Central Asian Survey.
Rima Majed (AUB) - Principal Investigator
Rima Majed is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at American University of Beirut. Her research focuses on social movements, sectarianism, conflict and violence, and gender and intersectionality in the Middle East. She holds a PhD and an MSc in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Dr. Majed was a visiting fellow at the Mamdouha Bobst Center for Peace and Justice at Princeton University in 2018/2019. Her work has appeared in many academic and media platforms including Social Forces; Mobilization; Middle East Law and Governance; Global Dialogue; Idafat: The Arab Journal of Sociology; Al Jumhuriya; CNN; Middle East Eyes, OpenDemocracy, and Al Jazeera English.
Elizabeth Saleh (AUB) – Lead Internal Advisor
Elizabeth Saleh is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut. She works in the fields of political and economic anthropology, with a special focus on labor, gender, resistance and social transformation. She obtained her PhD in Social Anthropology and an MA in Anthropology and Cultural Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London. Saleh has also held posts at the Orient Institute in Beirut, the London School of Economics and Goldsmith
Nisreen Salti (AUB) – Advisor
Nisreen Salti is an associate professor of economics at the American University of Beirut. She works on development economics and political economy. Her research is on inequality and inequity in resources, access, and outcomes, with a focus on health. She is especially interested in marginalized communities, particularly refugees, including their health and labor market outcomes. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Development Economics, World Development, Social Science and Medicine, the Lancet, and the International Journal for Middle Eastern Studies among others. She has been an active participant in local and regional policy debates, engaging policy makers and analysts in government and in various multilateral organizations and arms of the UN. She holds a Masters in public Affairs and a PhD in Economics from Princeton University.