Dr. Debbie Almontaser
Dr.
- Religion & Interfaith
- Arts & Culture
- Hate Crimes and Violence
Dr.
Wa'el Alzayat is CEO of Emgage, a national civic education and engagement grassroots organization for Muslim Americans, and a lecturer at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Alzayat previously served as a U.S. Middle East policy expert at the U.S. Department of State for ten years, including as senior policy advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
Urooj Arshad currently serves as the Director of International Youth Health and Rights Programs at Advocates for Youth, where she helps build the capacity of youth-driven organizations in the global south and east. She also manages a project focused on building the capacity of organizations working in the U.S with Muslim youth around sexual education, reproductive health, and rights. Ms.
Donna Auston is an anthropologist, writer, and activist whose body of work focuses on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, media representation, and Islam in America. Her dissertation is an ethnographic exploration of Black Muslim activism and spiritual protest in the Black Lives Matter era.
Zahra Billoo serves as the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) office, the oldest and one of the largest CAIR chapter offices. Since joining in 2009, Zahra has led the organization through a period of six-fold growth.
Since 2007, the Rev. Chloe Breyer has directed The Interfaith Center of New York, a nationally-recognized nonprofit that works with hundreds of grassroots religious leaders from diverse faith traditions to catalyze partnerships with civic officials to resolve social problems plaguing New York City. Issues include police reform, immigration concerns, and domestic violence.
An ordained minister, Rev. Jennifer Butler is the founding Executive Director of Faith in Public Life and chair of the White House Council on Faith and Neighborhood Partnerships. Before leading FPL, Reverend Butler spent ten years working in the field of international human rights representing the Presbyterian Church (USA) at the United Nations.
Jordan Denari Duffner is a leading Catholic voice on Muslim-Christian relations and Islamophobia. She is the author ofFinding Jesus among Muslims: How Loving Islam Makes Me a Better Catholic, and her forthcoming book on Islamophobia is slated for publication in 2020.
Maha Elgenaidi is the founder of Islamic Networks Group (ING), a non-profit organization with affiliates around the country that are pursuing peace and countering all forms of bigotry through education and interfaith engagement while working within the framework of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom and pluralism.
Margari Aziza Hill is the executive director and co-founder of MuslimARC, the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, a human rights education organization. She also works as an independent researcher, blogger, and freelance writer. After converting to Islam in 1993, her life experiences as a Black American woman have informed her research and writing on Islam, education, race, and gender.