Hello,

I am an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Toronto.

My research explores the transnational politics, meaning, and memory of violence and suffering in the Middle East and its diasporas. I am especially interested in how religion and rights shape the meaning of violence and chart trajectories for mobilization. In addition, my collaborative projects investigate knowledge production and collective memories of mass violence, specifically in Syria. I explore these questions qualitatively. This research has been published in the Sociology of Religion, Law & Society Review, the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Memory Studies, and the Minnesota Journal of International Law.

My current book project, Persecution Politics: Copts and the Geopolitics of Religious Difference and Rights, grapples with the question of what happens when religion becomes the language through which suffering is made visible—and weaponized—in global politics. More specifically, and based on transnational ethnographic fieldwork between Egypt and the United States, it explores how religious difference and rights are constructed, contested, and politicized by victim groups and transnational advocacy networks in the context of the global war on terror. I am also co-editing a volume with Mina Ibrahim on cross disciplinary methods in Coptic studies.

I am committed to bridging the gap between academia, advocacy, and policy. I have delivered a statement at the UN Forum on Minority Issues and consulted for the UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights and Minority Rights Group International. I currently sit on the Board of Advisors for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, DC and Redword for Human Rights and Freedom of Expression in Toronto.

I have a PhD and MA in Sociology from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and a BS in both Psychology and Sociology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. I was born in Egypt, raised in Kuwait, lived in the United States, and currently reside in Toronto, Canada.

You can explore my CV, read about my research, and connect with me on bluesky.