American University of Beirut

Nadia Abu El-Haj is Ann Olin Whitney Professor in the Departments of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University, Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies, and Chair of the Board of Directors of Columbia’s Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including from the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Harvard Academy for Area and International Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, she is the author of numerous journal articles published on topics ranging from the history of archaeology in Palestine, to the question of race and genomics, to the workings of American militarism during the post 9/11 wars. Dr. Abu El-Haj is the author of two books: Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001), which won the Albert Hourani Annual Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association in 2002, and The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology (University of Chicago Press, 2012). Her third book, to be published by Verso (2022), is a study of contemporary American militarism as it operates in and through the idiom of combat trauma and the obligation of American citizens to care for soldiers sent off to war in their name. 

Dr. Salman Abu Sitta is a Palestinian academic best known for his crucial work formulating a practical return plan for Palestinian refugees and documenting Palestine’s land and people through his extensive mapping of Palestine. He is the Founder and President of the Palestine Land Society (PLS), and his archival collection and working files form the backbone of the Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC) at AUB. He is also the author of over 400 articles and papers on Palestine, as well as several books. Notable among them are a series of atlases documenting Palestine at different periods. These include: Atlas of Palestine 1948, Atlas of Palestine 1917- 1966, Arabic and English editions. Atlas of Palestine 1871- 1877 and the Return Journey Atlas. There are also a series of poster maps about al Nakba. More details can be found on the PLS website: www.plands.org. His book, Mapping my Return, is the first personal memoir in English describing the experience of Al Nakba in southern Palestine. Dr Abu Sitta is a member of several organizations dealing with Palestinian rights, human rights and international law.​

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a British-Palestinian Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon. He completed his medical education at University of Glasgow in the U.K. He went on to do his postgraduate residency training in London. After completing his Specialist Registrar training in London he underwent 3 fellowships. He did a Fellowship in Pediatric Craniofacial Surgery and a Fellowship in Cleft Surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Kids and a further fellowship in Trauma Reconstruction at the Royal London Hospital. In 2011 he was recruited by the American University of Beirut Medical Center. In 2012 he became Head of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the AUBMC and in 2015 co-founded and became director of the Conflict Medicine Program at Global Health Institute at the American University of Beirut. He returned to the UK in 2020 and continues his in Plastic And Reconstructive Surgery. He is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Center for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College University of London. He serves as a reviewer at the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR-UK) and is on the Board of Advisors at its Global Research Group on Burn Trauma and on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Palestine Studies and the UK based charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. He has published extensively on war injuries including a medical text book, “Reconstructing the War Injured Patient” and has a forthcoming book, “Treating the War Injured Child.” He has worked as a war surgeon in Iraq, Syria, south Lebanon and during the 3 wars in the Gaza Strip. His work was featured by numerous newspapers and media outlets notably La Monde, The Independent, Telegraph, BBC and CNN. 

Luna Abu Swaireh is the Director General of the Center for Arab Unity Studies since May 2017. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Center’s flagship monthly journal “Al-Mustaqbal Al-Arabi”, the Arab Future, and she is also a member of the Editorial Board of Contemporary Arab Affairs, a quarterly journal published jointly by the Center for Arab Unity Studies and the University of California Press. Mrs. Abu Swaireh’s professional experience spans more than 20 years in the field of development work, program management and international organizations. Prior to joining the Center, she was the Head of the Regional Office for Arab States of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Cairo. Her previous positions in the United Nations include being Climate Change Coordinator in Bonn, Programme Coordinator of disaster risk reduction at the United Nations Secretariat in Geneva, Programme Coordinator of United Nations Volunteer Programs/UNDP for the Balkans and South Asia, and a UNDP Project Coordinator for Youth Development and Participation in Refugee Camps in Gaza Strip, Palestine.  Mrs. Abu Swaireh contributed to several international and regional reports, including the development of Arab strategies related to climate change, disaster risk reduction and sustainable development, she lead and supported international and regional negotiations on sustainable development and coordinated a number of development projects, high level conferences, training courses and experts workshops. Mrs. Luna Abu Swaireh holds a Masters degree in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh, USA and a Postgraduate Diploma in Feminist Development Economics from the Institute for Social Studies in the Netherlands. ​