Conference Speakers and Panelists

Panelists and speaker information is still being finalized…please come back periodically for updates

NAAP proudly announces that Dr. Jack Shaheen will deliver the Key Note Address at the 2007 NAAP National Conference.

Author of four award-winning books (Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (and the documentary of the same name); Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture; Nuclear War Films, and The TV Arab) and over 300 essays in critically acclaimed publications, Dr. Shaheen shines as a true visionary, earning international admiration and reverence. Dr. Shaheen currently sits as a Professor of Mass Communications Emeritus at Southern Illinois University. He has given countless speeches and lectures throughout the United States and consults with the United Nations, the United States Information Agency, the Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations, and New York City's Commission on Civil Rights. Dr. Shaheen regularly serves as a consultant with major TV and motion picture and companies.

Dr. Shaheen also consulted on the films Three Kings and Syriana.

H.E Afif Safieh currently serves as the Ambassador of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the United States, after serving sixteen years as PLO representative to the United Kingdom.

Born in Jerusalem in 1950, Ambassador Safieh obtained a degree in Political Science from Belgium in 1972 and graduated from the Paris Institute of Political Studies in 1974. He served as the President of the General Union of Palestinian Students in both Belgium and France.

From 1976 to 1978 he served as deputy director of the Palestine Liberation Organization Observer Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva. In 1978 he worked as a staff member in Yasser Arafat's office in Beirut, in charge of European Affairs and UN institutions. He served as the PLO representative to the Netherlands from 1987 until 1990, where he was involved in the 1988 Stockholm negotiations that led to the first official and direct American-Palestinian dialogue. In 1990, he became Palestinian General Delegate to the United Kingdom. In January 1995, he was invited to join the International Board of Trustees of the Vatican-sponsored Bethlehem University. Nominated Palestinian General Delegate to the Holy See, he presented his letter of credentials to Pope John Paul II on November 6, 1995.

On October 27, 2005 he was appointed to head the PLO office to the United States, Washington, DC, assuming his duty in November 2005.

Compilations of his articles have appeared in: Self Determination, published by Al-Fajr printing press, Jerusalem, 1986, and One people Too Many?, published in the Hague in 1987, and in three works published by the Palestinian General Delegation to the United Kingdom: Children of a Lesser God?, The end of pre-history, and On Palestinian diplomacy He is married to Christ'l Leclercq and has two daughters: Diana and Randa.

Germine Awad, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Human Development and Education Program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

She conducts research on the process of acculturation and ethnic identity formation for Arab Americans residing in the United States. Germine also studies the effect of discrimination on the Arab American community as well as predictors of prejudice toward Arab Americans, individuals of Middle Eastern descent, and other minority groups. She has published in the areas of racial and ethnic identity, affirmative action attitudes, and multicultural research methodology.

She received her B.S. in psychology from John Carroll University in Cleveland and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Germine was born in Cairo, Egypt and immigrated to the United States with her parents as a young child.

Madhulika S Khandelwal

Prof. Madhulika S. Khandelwal is the Director of the Asian/American Center and Associate Professor in Urban Studies Department at Queens College, City University of New York. Prof. Khandelwal’s main interests include immigrants, women, South Asia and its diaspora, Asian American communities, and multicultural issues in the United States.

Dr. Khandelwal’s ethnographic research on South Asian immigrant communities in the New York area has been recently published in her book Becoming American, Being Indian: An Immigrant Community in New York City (Cornell University Press, 2002).

She has been widely recognized for her community-oriented research and has been honored by NYC Comptroller’s Office, Queens Women’s Center, and community organizations such as Pragati and SAYA! (South Asian Youth Action !) .

Born in India, Prof. Khandelwal was educated in both India and the United States and holds a Ph.D in History from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Helen Hatab Samhan

Helen Hatab Samhan is Executive Director of the Arab American Institute Foundation in Washington D.C., a non-profit dedicated to promoting and studying the Arab American experience. AAIF is an affiliate of the Arab American Institute that represents Arab American issues in politics, elections, leadership training and public policy. She has been with the Institute since its formation in 1985.

Before joining the Institute, Ms. Samhan served for four years as Assistant Director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and between 1977 and 1980, was affiliated with the American-Arab Association for Commerce and Industry in New York City where she served as director of research.

During her career in Arab American relations, Ms. Samhan has written articles and presentations for various academic and community institutions on issues of concern to Arab Americans, particularly on the immigrant experience of Arabs in the U.S., their identity and demographics, the history of anti-Arab racism, political involvement and Arab American women. In 1996, she organized a "Working Group on Ancestry in the U.S. Census", a national coalition to support ethnic data measurement, and currently directs the foundation’s Census Information Center. Ms. Samhan has appeared on both local and network television and in the national media on interviews relating to the Arab American experience.

Ms. Samhan's publications include articles on Arab Americans in Worldbook Encyclopedia (2004) and Groliers Multimedia Encyclopedia (2002); “Not Quite White: Race Classification and the Arab American Experience,” in Arabs in America: Building a New Future (Temple University Press, 1999); "Arab American Organizations and Political Activism" in Arab American Almanac (Gale Research, 1999); "Arab Americans and the Elections of 1988" (Arab Studies Quarterly, 1989) and "The Politics of Exclusion: the Arab American Experience" (Journal of Palestine Studies, 1987).

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Ms. Samhan is the granddaughter of immigrants from present-day Syria and Lebanon. She received her BA in French literature from Marymount College and her MA in Middle East Studies from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon with a Masters degree in Middle East Studies.

Moderator: Jehan Agha

Jehan Agha manages the Foreign Fulbright Student Programs with Iraq and Pakistan, and the Israeli Fulbright Outreach Program at the Institute of International Education (IIE) in New York. Prior to joining IIE, Ms. Agha pursued her Master’s degree in Communication, Culture, and Technology at Georgetown University. She focused her research on issues of identity and nationalism in the Arab world and in the Arab American diaspora vis-à-vis the current era of globalization and its technologies, particularly new media. Her research culminated with her Master’s thesis entitled: From Homeland To Adopted Home: A Study On Identity Formation And Negotiation Among The Arab American Diaspora in which she explored the relationship between differences in conditions of diaspora and identity formation and negotiation. Through qualitative interviews and an online survey, the study compared Egyptian Americans, a state-linked diaspora, and Palestinian Americans, a stateless diaspora, in order to examine how differences in conditions give rise to differences in identity politics. In addition to the M.A. in Communication, Culture and Technology, Ms. Agha also gained a certificate in Arab Studies from Georgetown. She received her B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University with additional studies at the American University in Cairo.

Nawal El Saadawi

Often times hailed as “Egypt’s most interesting feminist”, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi is a pioneer in the Arab Feminism movement, committed to exposing gender discrimination and the exploitation of women through her many celebrated works.

Dr. El Saadawi is a novelist, a psychiatrist, and a writer who is internationally renowned and revered. Her novels and books on the situation of women have had a deep effect on successive generations of young women over the last four decades.

Her unabashed and unapologetic determination to call to light the injustices towards women created a number of obstacles in Dr. El Saadawi’s career and personal life. She was fired from her well-placed position in the Egyptian government in the early 70s for her outspoken views and later imprisoned under the reign of President Anwar Sadat. Although she was released after his assassination, Dr. El Saadawi’s life was constantly in danger for a long period afterwards, targeted some fanatical terrorist organizations and placed on death lists. Exiled and censored, Dr. El Saadawi has endured many hardships for standing up for her beliefs. In December 2004, she enlisted as a candidate for the presidential elections in Egypt, a feat rarely undertaken by females.

Dr. Nawal El Saadawi is the author of countless plays, novels, short story collections and works of non-fiction, many of whom have earned numerous national and international literary prizes. She currently lectures in universities and conferences throughout the world. Her works have been translated into over thirty (30) languages and are taught in a number of universities and colleges in different countries.

Sohair Soukkary is a representative to the United Nations of the Arab Women Solidarity Association (AWSA) and a freelance columnist for the Arabic daily newspapers Al-Ahram of Cairo and Al-Quds al-Arabi of London. She is a past president of the Arab and American Women’s Friendship Association (AAWFA).

Soukkary is the author of the Sing-And-Learn-A-Language Series: Arabic, a unique method of language learning and teaching based exclusively on songs, which she initiated at Georgetown University where she received an M.S. in Linguistics.

Moderator: Yasmine El-Shamayleh

Yasmine El-Shamayleh is a NAAP-NY member and a PhD candidate in Neural Science at New York University.

As a spoken word artist, she has performed at many shows in New York City, Philadelphia and DC. Her poetry focuses on the social and political concerns of Arab women in particular.

Yasmine graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in Biological Basis of Behavior and a minor in Psychology. She was born and raised in Jordan.

Collaborators or Patriots: A Debate on the issues of Cooperation and Participation in the 'War on Terror'

Jawad H. Salah, Esq. is a real estate and finance attorney currently in private practice in Philadelphia.

He previously practiced law in New York City from 2001 to 2006, with a focus on Islamic and Shariah-compliant financing. During his tenure in New York, Salah served as a board member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's New York chapter, and for a period as its Vice President.

Salah was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and his family resides in the United States, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Egypt.

George Selim serves as a Policy Adviser in the Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). His primary duties involve providing counsel that will enable policy-makers to achieve their national security and law enforcement goals in ways that also protect civil rights and civil liberties. This is achieved by (1) working with other Federal agencies to develop and strengthen the U.S. Government’s civic engagement, public outreach and public diplomacy initiatives; (2) regularly engaging with the American Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian communities; and (3) helping law enforcement officials better engage with ethnic and religious minorities nationally.

Prior to joining DHS, Mr. Selim had been serving under a White House appointment to the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Selim served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Community Relations Service (CRS), an agency created out of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Mr. Selim is active in local, state and national politics and community outreach. He was appointed to a three-year term on the Arlington VA Human Rights Commission, worked as a community outreach coordinator for the Arab American Institute, and served one year of Americorps national service.

Mr. Selim is a recipient of the 2006 Department of Justice “Meritorious Service” award, the 2006 Arab American Institute “Public Service” Award, and the 2005 recipient of the Lebanese American Chamber of Commerce “Chairman’s Award”. Mr. Selim is a native of Americas beloved Cleveland, OH.

Moderator: Sarab Al-Jijakli

Sarab Al-Jijakli, is a co-founder of the NY chapter of NAAP. Sarab graduated from Pace University, with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Marketing, where he founded Pace's Arab Student Union.

Currently, Sarab is an Associate Director at an integrated marketing firm, and specializes in developing marketing programs that cut across all mediums.

As NAAP-NY's Political Action Committee facilitator, Sarab has focused on developing comprehensive election outreach campaigns throughout New York and New Jersey in Arab-populated neighborhoods, and is heavily involved in coalition building efforts with grassroots initiatives, particularly in efforts to raise awareness about the situations in Palestine and Iraq, as well as to increase civic participation within the Arab-American community.

Maymanah Farhat specializes in modern and contemporary Arab art. She has conducted extensive research in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Farhat has lectured on Middle Eastern visual culture in universities, galleries and non-profit organizations throughout the United States.

Her published works include art historical writings, exhibitions reviews, artist profiles, film reviews, and political essays. Since 2006, she has been co-editor of Art AsiaPacific magazine's annual Almanac, which reports on the year in art in 67 Asian nations.

Farhat has also curated several exhibitions, including Three Arab Painters in New York, which was held at The Bridge gallery in Manhattan's Chelsea district in 2006.

Sumayyah Samaha is co-founder and an active member of 22 Wooster Gallery. Since the late 1970s/early 1980s her work has been displayed at numerous venues including galleries and museums.

Her solo exhibitions include: “Personal Landscapes”, at the Blink Gallery in Andes, “Strange Fruit” and Landscapes: Where My Soul Roams at Denise Bibro Fine Art in New York City.

Museum exhibits include In/Visibile: Contemporary Art by Arab American Artists” curated by Salwa Mikdadi at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and American Abstraction: A new Decade at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, Pennsylvania.

Samah’s group exhibitions include: “3 Arab painters in New York: Samia Halaby, Sumayyah Samaha, Athir Shayota” Curated by Maymanah Farhat at The Bridge Gallery and “Real Compared to What; artistic expression as a wrench in the system”, at Gallery OneTwentyEight, both in New York City.

Her work has appeared in publications such as The Women Artists in Lebanon; prepared for the Institute of Women’s Studies in the Arab World and she has been reviewed in publications such as Al Nahar in Beirut, Lebanon.

Samaha has a BA from The American University of Beirut and an MA from The University of Pittsburgh.

Born to Palestinian/Jordanian immigrant parents, award-winning filmmaker and television writer Cherien Dabis has been recognized by the industry's top organizations and trade publications, including the Sundance Institute, IFP and Filmmaker Magazine.

Dabis' short films have screened at some of the world's top film festivals. Her latest, Itmanna (Make A Wish), premiered at the 2006 Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films and Dubai International Film Festival where it won the Gold Muhr Award for Best Short Film. The film was an official selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin as well as Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival. Currently in development is Amreeka, her feature film writing and directing debut slated to begin production in late Winter 2007.

Dabis was invited to participate in the Sundance Institute's first ever Middle East Screenwriter's Lab and the 2006 Cannes Film Festival's inaugural Mediterranean Films Crossing Borders program.

Dabis was a Staff Writer on season three of Showtime's critically acclaimed television series The L Word and a Story Editor on season four. As a feature film screenwriter, she has been awarded several distinguished awards in support of her screenplays including the Zaki Gordon Award for Excellence in Screenwriting. Her production credits include Jane Campion's psychological thriller In the Cut and NBC's critically acclaimed television series The West Wing.

Before her work in film and television, Dabis worked as a media activist and public relations specialist in Washington, D.C.

Dabis has been awarded numerous prestigious grants and fellowships including the 2006 Artist Fellowship in Playwriting & Screenwriting from the New York Foundation of the Arts. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s Masters of Fine Arts Film program and holds a BA with honors in communications and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati.

Moderator: Hanan Thabet

Hanan Thabet works in the field of educational development and exchange at the Institute of International Education (IIE) in New York, where she is currently managing a new training and development program for one of the largest Libyan national oil companies.

Prior to joining IIE, Thabet lived and worked in Egypt as a teacher in a private international school in Cairo. Thabet returned to her hometown of New York in 2004 to begin her Master’s degree and it was at this time that she became an active supporter of Arab artists, having closely worked on the project of bringing the “Made in Palestine” art exhibit to New York.

Thabet received her BA in Middle East Studies (magna cum laude) from the American University in Cairo, and her MA in Middle East Studies from New York University.

May Alhasan is a student at Columbia University where she's working hard to earn a master's degree in a field where she'll need to conduct at least ten years of post-doctoral study in order to make minimum wage

A connoisseur of door-knocker earrings and low-cut tops, she enjoys scouring the 1960s archives of The Egyptian Gazette for Malcolm X references, freelance writing, eating falafel sandwiches with spicy sauce and baba ghanosh on the side, and shopping at Urban Outfitters for "anti-war woven scarves."

Dangerously seductive, she is KABOBfest's resident siren. True to her Bedouin roots, she pitches tents every Sunday night at 7:00pm ART's hit show "What's Happening!"

Her opinion pieces have appeared frequently in the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post and the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper and she has also published opeds in The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Egypt's al-Dostour and Lebanon's Daily Star. She recently became a columnist for the major Danish daily Politiken and the online commentary site www.saudidebate.com.

Ms Eltahawy was a news reporter in the Middle East for many years, including in Cairo and Jerusalem as a correspondent for Reuters and she reported from the region for The Guardian and U.S. News and World Report.

Ms Eltahawy was the first Egyptian journalist to live and to work for a western news agency in Israel and knows both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict. She reported on the terrorist campaign in Egypt in the 1990s and so is familiar with the groups and ideology behind the attacks of September 11, 2001 and others since then.

Since she moved to the U.S. in 2000, Ms Eltahawy's views on Arab and Muslim issues have become sought after by producers and college campuses alike. She has been a guest analyst on ABC Nightline, PBS Frontline, BBC TV and Radio, The Doha Debates, CNN, Al-Arabiya, Al-Hurra, MSNBC, VOA, Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor and various NPR shows.

Mona was born in Egypt and is a graduate of the American University in Cairo.

Fayyad Sbaihat is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin where he majored in divestment and heartbreak.

He works from home where he does not shower for days and often reads the news about the Arab world over a bowl of cookie crisps.

His hobbies include shaving his chest, playing Tarneeb, and drinking Mojitos. He is an outspoken critic of the Zionist entity and launched Chicago's first ever anti-spelling campaign.

Moderator: Noreen Hafez

Noreen Hafez comes from a media background having worked with Twentieth Century Fox, selling and marketing broadcast material. After that she joined Andover.net (VA Linux) and sold online advertising. She also started her own web design freelance company with a friend, and is responsible for designing and building small business, e-commerce and several Arab–American non-profit organization websites. She works as a Product Marketing Manager for one of the oldest and largest online advertising networks.

She was one of the co-founders for the Arab American Young Professionals, which later became the Network of Arab American Professional Boston Chapter in 2003 and continues to be an active member of NAAP-Boston. Ms. Hafez also helped launch the first Arab American Film Maker Award competition that was sponsored by actor Tony Shalhoub to encourage young Arab Filmmakers.

Ms. Hafez was raised in upstate New York and attended Ithaca College before she decided to move to Beirut, Lebanon as a transfer student to AUB. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, and then a Bachelor in Business at LAU.

Leila Buck is a writer, performer and teaching artist. Her award-winning one-woman show, ISite, has toured the U.S., Europe and China for the past eight years and been featured in the New York Times and Lebanon's Daily Star.

Leila first performed her latest work, In the Crossing, in fall 2006 at The Public Theater's "New Work Now!" Arab Israeli Festival in collaboration with New York Theatre Workshop and Nibras Arab American Theater Collective. The piece was chosen by the Public to be included in its "Americans Respond to the Crisis in the Middle East" event alongside the work of Karen Hartman, Najla Said, David Grimm and Naomi Wallace.

Leila has spoken about Arab American theater on Brian Lehrer Live and WBAI New York. Her presentation from the 2006 DIWAN conference of Arab American artists at the Arab American National Museum is published in "Etching Our Own Image: Voices from the Arab American Arts Movement" from Cambridge Scholars Press.

After five years as a teaching artist in NY public schools, Leila now creates her own work focusing on Arab-American issues through performances, teacher training, Arab youth programs and more. She is New York Theatre Workshop's teaching artist for their yearlong partnership with the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, and leads regular workshops in storytelling and drama with Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture in Philadelphia.

Leila has been the Artistic Director of Nisaa Arab American Women's Collective, a Founding Member of Nibras Arab American Theater Collective and Mixed Company Bi-Cultural Theater Company, a "Usual Suspect" artist with New York Theatre Workshop and a writer and performer for the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival.

Leila holds a B.A. in Theater from Wesleyan University and is currently completing her Master's in Drama for Education about the Arab World at NYU.

Ahmed Soliman is an accomplished journalist and filmmaker, having recently served for two years as the Senior Anchor and Producer for the daily world news on Bridges TV, nationally televised on various cable markets across the country and on DISH Network

Prior to working at Bridges TV, Soliman produced and directed a post-911 documentary for a PBS affiliate titled Born in the USA: Muslim Americans. The film followed a Muslim American doctor and teacher in the months following the September 11th Attack, and received positive reviews and press from WCBS – TV in New York, The Star Ledger Newspaper in New Jersey, and The Home News Tribune. He began his career as the Managing Editor of the Gazette-Leader, a weekly newspaper for the towns of Elizabeth and Hillside in New Jersey.

Soliman’s latest work is a book published in 2007, titled Born in the USA: Reflections of an Arab and Muslim-American Journalist.

Soliman has been honored with numerous awards, including an Opinion Writing award from the New Jersey Press Association.

He received his Bachelors Degree in Communications at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Moderator: Rima Abdelkader

Rima Abdelkader is a New York-based journalist who has worked as a print and TV journalist in the United Nations and as a New York Correspondent for Bridges TV.

Her work has been published in both domestic and international news media, from O'Dwyer's PR Report in NY, Southwest News-Herald Online in Chicago, Arab News newspaper in Saudi Arabia, to Sharq Magazine in the UK.

Prior to working at the UN, Abdelkader interned for NBC and for CNN's Diplomatic License with host Richard Roth and producer Elizabeth Neisloss.

She is a recipient of the Women's Press Club Award for Journalism, Helen Abbott Award for Community Service, JuryFury.com Best Writer of its April 2007 issue on Internet, Media and Censorship, and the Project Pericles Award for Leadership.

Abdelkader received her B.B.A. in Marketing with a specialization in Management and Political Science at Pace University magna cum laude.

Dealing with Discrimination: Difficult Situations in the Workplace and Daily Life

Cynthia H. Fareed

Cynthia H. Fareed is a litigation attorney who specializes in intellectual property and employment law. Cynthia has served as legal counsel for a wide range of individual and corporate clients, including government officials of the United Arab Emirates, SAAB, Britannia Airways, Pacific Sunwear, BCBG, Ales Groupe-Phyto Shampoo.

As a law student at Brooklyn Law School, Cynthia worked at the Al-Haq Human Rights center in Ramallah and received the Amnesty International Patrick Steward Human Rights Scholarship.

Cynthia is also the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of SWAY Magazine, a magazine that highlights the culture, art, and beauty of the Middle Eastern community worldwide.

Omar Mohammedi is a member of the New York and Algerian Bar, as well as a British lawyer. He has a private practice in New York. He specializes in Civil Litigation and Business Law.

Mohammedi has successfully handled various high profile cases such as the 1999 Amadou Diallo case. He is presently representing the six Imams who were taken off a US Airways flight as well as Muslim Women against the MTA for Religious discrimination.

In 2002, Mayor Bloomberg appointed Mohammedi to be the first Muslim-Arab-American Commissioner to the NYC Commission on Human Rights. Mohammedi testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to document hate crimes and profiling against the Muslim Community. He also testified before the NY City council to repeal the US Patriot Act.

In his earlier legal career, Mohammedi worked as a member of high powered litigation teams at Shearman & Sterling and Anderson Kill & Olick.

Mohammedi is a member of the City Bar Association, the American Bar Association, a founding member and President of the Association of Muslim-American Lawyers.

Moderator: Eman Ahmed

Born and raised in New York, Eman Ahmed, Esq. is an Egyptian-American attorney, specializing in employment discrimination.

Eman is an active member of the Network of Arab-American Professionals, currently serving as the Cultural/Social Committee Facilitator in the New York chapter. She is a member of the NYSBA Committee on Women in the Law. She appeared in the 2003 edition of Who’s Who Among American Law Students and currently appears in the Madison Who’s Who. She received her B.A. from St. John’s University, Suma Cum Laude, and her J.D. from New York Law School, having served as an editor on Law Review.

Deborah Kanafani

Deborah Kanafani began her work in media affairs when she wrote a Masters thesis on the image of Arabs and the Middle East conflict in high school history text books, for The National Association of Arab Americans.

Her upcoming book entitled Unveiled, slated for release in January 2008, has already received vast attention from the press, academia, non-profit organizations with a focus on the Middle East, and has been ranked as one of the top ten books for 2008 by Simon and Schuster. In Unveiled, Kanafani presents her insights to the politics and culture of the Middle East as an American married to an Arab diplomat living in the region.

Kanafani has been Director of International Productions for the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, where she wrote and produced programs on children’s and women’s rights for the UNDP, UNICEF, and various European countries.

She was Executive Director of Women in Film and Video in Washington, DC, and a consultant for Oxygen Media.

Kanafani serves on the boards of several Israeli/Palestinian peace organizations and is actively involved in conflict resolution programs. She currently lives in New York and Los Angeles, where she is producing a film on the life of Queen Dina.

Terri Ginsberg received her doctorate in Cinema Studies from New York University. She currently teaches Film Studies at North Carolina State University and taught previously in the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth College and the Cinema Studies Program at Rutgers University.

She has published numerous scholarly texts, including the co-edited volume "Perspectives on German Cinema" and a just-published monograph entitled "Holocaust Film: The Political Aesthetics of Ideology" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

She is now preparing to teach a course on the cinema of the conflict in Palestine/Israel.

Ginsberg is a member of The International Jewish Solidarity Network, a growing international network of Jews whose Jewish identities are not based on nationalism but on a plurality of histories and experiences. IJSN is committed to the struggle against the colonization of Palestine and the building of a Zionist Jewish state that began in 1948.

Vivian Salama is an award winning foreign correspondent, producer and blogger. She has reported for various publications from across the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, the United States and most recently, North and South Korea. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including: Newsweek, WashingtonPost.com, International Herald Tribune, Daily Star (Lebanon/Egypt), and Al-Ahram Weekly.

She has also appeared as a commentator on the BBC, South African Broadcasting Corp., NPR and as a reporter for Voice of America radio.

Salama is currently based in her native New York City where she is wrapping up a masters degree at Columbia University, reporting, producing and lecturing at Rutgers University

Moderator: Farrah Haidar

Farrah Haidar manages her own boutique marketing firm and has more than a decade of experience managing integrated communications campaigns across multiple time zones and industries.

She is an avid writer and regularly contributes to several newsletters and blogs.

Farrah holds a Masters of Business Administration from Boston University's School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing Management from California State University, Hayward.

Hussam Hamadeh is Founder of New York based Vault Inc., the leading media company for career information. Founded in 1997 in Hamadeh’s Manhattan apartment upon his graduation from business and law school, Vault has grown to become the most influential source of objective, independent information on careers and employers with offices in New York and London.

He has been named to the “Silicon Alley 100: The 100 Most Influential Media Executives in New York” for the last two years. He also serves on the Board of Managers of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and in 2002 was named by the Law School as their “Young Alumnus of the Year.” He has received numerous additional honors including Finalist – Harvard Business School Club of New York “Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Crain’s Small Business of the Year”.

In October 2007, Hamadeh sold a majority of Vault to a leading media private equity firm for between $50 and $100 million but continues to co-run the company.

Prior to founding Vault, Hamadeh founded a customized-textbook publishing company in Los Angeles and held summer associate positions at the investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and the law firms Skadden Arps, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

He has authored or co-authored eight books, including Business School Companion, published by Random House while Hamadeh was an MBA student at Wharton, and The Vault Guide to Schmoozing.

Hamadeh holds an M.B.A (1997) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. (1997) from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a B.A. (1992) from UCLA. He is also a licensed attorney and member of the New York Bar.

Laila Kassis joined Key Venture Partners in 2005 and focuses on investments in communications, software and technology enabled services businesses. She serves as a board observer of Centive, OpSource, and TriActive and is actively involved with Insight Direct.

Kassis joined Key Venture Partners from Spectrum Equity Investors in Boston where she focused on late stage growth investments in software, technology enabled services and media. She was primarily responsible for sourcing new investment opportunities for the firm in these areas.

Prior to joining Spectrum, Kassis worked as a Financial Analyst in Bear Stearns' Technology Investment Banking Group in New York City. At Bear Stearns, she focused on M&A advisory to Fortune 500 clients in the enterprise software, IT services, aerospace-defense, and communications technology arenas.

Kassis holds a B.A. in Economics and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia

Before striking out as an entrepreneur and business owner, Renee Shaker spent 20 years in corporate finance, specializing in the aviation industry. After earning her MBA from NYU in 1983, Shaker joined Trans World Corp. where, as Director of Planning and Business Development, she worked on M&A transactions for the airline holding company.

After working to take the company private in a leveraged buyout in 1989, Shaker went on to manage Price Waterhouse’s International Aviation Consulting Practice. In 1992, Shaker moved to Wall Street where she was Vice President & Senior Analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, a major securities rating agency. A top analyst in her field, in 1996 Shaker was voted Institutional Investor Magazine’s Industry All-Star analyst.

Personal tragedy hit that same year with the death of her husband following a three year battle with cancer. Re-evaluating her life and career, Ms. Shaker left Wall Street and set out to help others living with cancer.

During this time, Ms. Shaker started her first company, Life Care Concepts, Inc., which was dedicated to helping people facing a diagnosis of cancer. She produced the educational documentary, You’ve Just Been Told You Have Cancer, and companion guidebook, which received critical acclaim from several notable cancer-related organizations including the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious OncoLink. That same year, the video won a Telly award.

Deciding to move on with her life, Shaker chose a career in the music industry and in 1999 teamed up with industry veterans to start Sine Audio Inc, an audio design and rental company. A year later, she took control of the company and refashioned Sine Audio Inc into a specialty company focused on the special events industry. Today, Sine Audio Inc is the premier audio company in New York specializing in high-profile events for the fashion, art, media and corporate markets.

Shaker is the author of Audio & Video for the Event Planner: the Perfect Complement of Design and Technology, to be published later this year.

Moderator: Robert G. Ayan

Robert Ayan is currently Managing Partner at Cambridge Advisors, a Cambridge based investment management and venture advisory firm bridging the US venture community with the Middle East North Africa region. Robert is co-founder of Minah Ventures, the first US technology venture capital firm to leverage the entrepreneurial and technical talent of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in North America and the MENA region. Robert brings over a decade of experience in roles spanning technology strategy, product management, technology entrepreneurship, public policy, education and venture capital.

As Program Manager of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, Robert helped innovators commercialize their emerging technologies and supported the launch of technology entrepreneurship initiatives across the MENA region, including the establishment of three entrepreneurship centers and a technology venture capital fund. Robert continues to provide public policy advice on building an entrepreneurial ecosystem to support technology entrepreneurship to MENA region institutions and regional development authorities. Robert also continues to deliver a customized entrepreneur’s boot camp titled From Idea to Enterprise including a number of workshops on technology entrepreneurship and venture capital to support aspiring MENA region entrepreneurs.

Robert earned his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was awarded the Carroll L. Wilson Fellowship to study the use of Information and Communication Technology as a means to foster economic development in the Arab World. Robert also earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the Boston University School of Management, where he studied Management Information Systems and Computer Science.

Omar Romman is a Senior Vice President at Unifund, an international investment firm, where he is responsible for the group's private and public equity investments in the Middle East.

Previously, Mr. Romman was a General Manager at Agility Logistics in Kuwait and a consultant with Bain & Company in Dallas, Texas and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Romman holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Salim G. Samaha:

New York-based Salim Samaha is a Principal of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a multi-billion dollar private equity fund that invests in energy, transportation and water assets globally.

Prior to joining GIP, Samaha was a Vice President in the Global Energy Group (Investment Banking Department) of Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (CS) in New York and an Analyst in Lehman Brothers' Global Power & Project Finance group in New York.

He has advised clients on over $41 billion of announced transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, high yield debt financings, leveraged loan financings and equity financings. He has worked on transactions in the power generation, electric and gas transmission and distribution, energy trading, midstream and liquefied natural gas industries.

Selected representative transactions include: Dynegy's $4.1 billion acquisition of LS Power's power generation assets and associated formation of a power generation development joint venture;Sale of Dynegy Midstream Services to Targa Resources / Warburg Pincus for $2.475 billion; and Sale of TXU Australia to Singapore Power for A$5.7 billion, CFO's Asian 2004 M&A Deal of the Year.

Samaha holds a B.Com in Finance and Accounting from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Islam Zughayer:

Islam Zughayer is a Director at Berenson & Company, an independent investment banking firm that focuses on a broad range of public and private corporations, financial institutions, equity sponsors and entrepreneurs. Islam focuses on mergers and acquisitions, financing, restructuring and other strategic advisory service. Islam has a broad range of restructuring industry experience, including retail, distribution, communications, manufacturing, healthcare and foodservice companies. He has also been active in raising senior debt, mezzanine and private equity capital for distressed companies in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

Prior to joining Berenson & Company in early 2001 from the Global Corporate Finance-Corporate Restructuring Group of Andersen LLP. At Andersen, Islam focused on restructuring advisory, corporate finance and financial recapitalizations.

Islam graduated Cum Laude from the University of Illinois at Champaign with B.A. degrees in Finance and Economics.

The Politics of Academic Freedom: The Crisis Facing Arab-American Educators and What We Can do About It

Debbie Almontaser:

Debbie Almontaser, is the founding and former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. As a 16-year veteran of the NYC public school system, she taught special education, inclusion, trained teachers in literacy, and served as a multicultural specialist and diversity advisor. Presently she is the Director of Policy and Planning of Special Projects at the Department of Education.

Ms. Almontaser also serves as a consultant for numerous projects and organizations including Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. Muslim American Series Project, Independent Production Fund on the Islam Project (producers of Muslims and Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet PBS Productions), Islam Access Project (Channel 13 WNET), and the Interfaith Center of NYC. Ms. Almontaser was a member of the steering committee for A Community of Many Worlds: Arab-Americans at the Museum of the City of New York. She is also the go to person on cultural and religious diversity issues for Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Mayor’s office of Immigrant Affairs, New York Police Department and City Council Members David Yassky, Bill DeBlasio and John Liu among others.

Ms. Almontaser was born in Yemen and raised in the United States. She acquired a B.A. from St. Francis College in English and World Religions and an M.S. in Multicultural Education and Reading from Adelphi. She holds an M.S. from Baruch College's School of Public Affairs through their Aspiring Leaders Program.

Amel Ahmed is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her work focuses on democratization and the politics of institutional choice in western democracies.

She is currently writing a book on the development of electoral systems in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, which examined ways in which elites can manipulate institutions to counteract the impact of democratization.

Dr. Ahmed has been active in many Arab-American organizations on both the local and national level and continues to work as a community organizer.

She received her BA from Dartmouth College and her MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Moderator: Salah Zalatimo:

Salah Zalatimo has been a member of NAAP-NY since 2003. He focuses his efforts on addressing the challenges the Arab community faces in the media, politics and academia.

As an alumnus of Columbia University, he has been especially affected by and involved with the tenure struggles of several Middle Eastern professors.

Salah recently graduated from Columbia Business School and works at McKinsey & Company in their media practice.

Beyond Higher Education: Applying and Persevering in the Graduate School Process

Rabia Ahmed is an Assistant Director for MBA Admissions at New York University’s Stern School of Business. She focuses on Stern’s full-time marketing efforts, women’s recruiting and international and domestic outreach.

Prior to Stern, she worked for Sony Electronics in their logistics division for over three years. During that time, she helped streamline the month-end and budgetary revenue consolidation for the division.

Rabia currently serves as the Co-founder and Vice-President of Youth Outreach, Developments in Literacy (YOUR DIL), a non-profit organization committed to raise funds and awareness to fight illiteracy in Pakistan. Developments in Literacy (DIL), the parent organization, operates 150 schools and educates over 13,000 students.

Rabia received a Master of Arts degree from NYU in International Education in 2006. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Montclair State University in 2002.

Linda Tobash directs the University Placement Services Division at the Institute of International Education, the oldest international exchange organization in the U.S.

Working mainly with Fulbright Scholarship recipients, IIE’s Placement Services Division annually researches U.S. academic placements for nearly 1,600 international graduate students, placing them in a wide range of U.S. colleges and universities.

Tobash also serves on the faculty of the New School University teaching courses on intercultural communication. A frequent presenter on U.S. higher education and international exchange, she has been active on numerous professional association committees and boards, most recently including the National Council on the Evaluation of Foreign Educational Credentials and the Bologna Declaration (European Higher Education Reform) Task Force for NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Prior to joining IIE, Tobash worked for 18 years in the City University of New York system, for ten years as director of admissions at LaGuardia Community College. She served in the U.S Peace Corps in Korea and received her master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Moderator: Farhanna Balgahoom

Farhanna Balgahoom is currently working toward her M.B.A. part-time at NYU's Stern School of Business with a hopeful concentration in Business Strategy. Her full time role as the Assistant Marketing Manager for Clinique North America focuses on internet marketing and enhancing brand awareness among young consumers and ethnic consumers.

After receiving her B.A. in Economics and Political Science at Drew University, Farhanna gained over three years of work experience in banking, corporate development and marketing before beginning business school. She also maintained extensive internships in research, finance and local politics throughout college. Preparations for business school entailed over two years of GMAT prep, essay writing, resume revisions, application forms and deciding between a part-time and full-time program.

Farhanna is committed to higher education through her work with New York City's PENCIL, the Financial Women's Association Scholarship Committee, the Young Women's Leadership Foundation, the Alumni Recruitment Team of her alma-mater and as the Founder of the Clinique Nursing Scholarship Program.

Ms. Alhusseini joined the Arab American Family Support Center as Executive Director in April 2006 after a number of years at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), where she served as international outreach project manager on issues of child protection, abduction and child trafficking.

Prior to joining NCMEC, Alhusseini worked for the Gateway Battered Women's Shelter in Denver, Colorado where she developed the Shelter's children's program and worked with diverse populations including Latino and Arab-American women and children on issues of Domestic Violence.

Before coming to the U.S., Alhusseini served with a number of international organizations around the world on issues pertaining to child protection and human trafficking, including USAID and UNICEF. Most notably, she established the Jordan River Foundation's child protection unit under the direction of HM Queen Rania Al Abdullah. This organization was the first in Jordan to address the issue of child abuse and protection.

Alhusseini leads AAFSC as the lead partner of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, the first Arabic dual language public school in the USA.

Alhusseini is a recipient of the Auburn Seminary Women of Commitment Award 2007 and twice a recipient of a Certificate of Appreciation by the National center for Missing and Exploited Children. Born in Jerusalem and raised in Saudi Arabia and the UK, Alhusseini is of Palestinian origin.

Souha Frewat-Nikowitz

Souha Frewat-Nikowitz, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist living and working in NYC. She has been working with the Arab community on mental health issues since her graduation—first as a psychologist at the Arab-American Family Support Center, then as one of the people who helped launch a mental health initiative post 9/11 in Bay Ridge together with the Arab American Association of NY, Salam Lutheran Arabic Church, and Tamkeen.

She has been active in her private practice since 2001, both in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. Some of her specialties include treating post traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety conditions as well as relational problems.

She has an M.A. in psychology from NYU and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from The New School.

Moderator: Walead Latif

Walead Latif is a nephrology fellow at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences and Psychology from Rutgers University, NJ. Upon graduating from college he attended the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey where he received his medical degree.

After finishing medical school, Latif completed post graduate training in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York. During residency, he also completed the professional Master's in Business Administration program at the University of Massachusetts where his focus was in medical management.

After residency he practiced Internal Medicine at the Brooklyn Veteran's Administration (VA) Hospital. During his tenure at the VA he ran an urgent care clinic for active military personnel as well as provided a comprehensive screening exam for those veterans returning from the Persian Gulf conflict.

He holds board certification in internal medicine and professional memberships with the American Society of Nephrology, the Renal Physician's Association and the American College of Physician Executives. He is active with NAAP-NY and is co-facilitator of the professional development committee.

Bahiah Abdrabboh

Bahiah Abdrabboh gained her expertise in the field of special needs populations in early childhood development through her work as a public school teacher and a developmental intervention consultant for an early intervention agency.

Abdrabboh is a part-time adjunct professor at Montclair State University and serves as an education mentor for undergraduate and graduate students studying education.

Abdrabboh received her Masters of Arts in Teaching from Montclair State University and her Bachelors degree in Psychology from William Paterson University. In January 2008, Abdrabboh will begin a post-Masters program in Psychology Endorsement followed by a PhD in Psychology at Farleigh Dickinson University.

She is a board member of WAFA House, a domestic violence prevention organization and is the proud mother of two children.

Jamie Kim is the Director of the Collaborative for Arab-American Philanthropy at the National Network for Arab-American Communities, a project of the Arab Community Center for Economic Social Services (ACCESS) which seeks to build community strength by creating a permanent structure to support strategic philanthropy in the Arab-American community. She has worked with NNAAC since its inception in 2002.

Prior to managing the Collaborative, Kim was the director of the Arab-American Resource Corps (ARC), NNAAC's national AmeriCorps program. She has worked closely with the NNAAC member organizations for four years, and provided training and technical assistance on program management as the director of the ARC program.

In addition to her work NNAAC and ACCESS, Kim has worked in a number of organizations as an advocate for the civil and human rights of Arab Americans and Palestinians.

Kim received her B.A. in Political Science and History from Taylor University

Linda Sarsour is the Acting Director at the Arab American Association of New York, a non profit social service agency serving Arabs and Arab Americans in New York City.

Sarsour is also a family support counselor and certified medical interpreter for a major city hospital in Brooklyn, NY. In the aftermath of 9/11 Sarsour brought the lack of services for the Arabs and Muslims to the forefront of community and public discussion.

Her strengths are in the areas of women’s empowerment, community organizing, and immigrant rights advocacy. She is a Palestinian Muslim American born and raised in New York City.

Moderator: Deena Said

Deena Said is a 4-year member of NAAP-Philadelphia where she serves on the leadership and administrative committee. During her time with NAAP, she has helped to organize, among other things, one of the most successful Arab-American fundraisers in the Philadelphia area, raising a total of over $80,000 for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. She also led NAAP-Philadelphia’s Lebanon relief efforts following the 2006 war, helping to raise $15,000 for the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

As one of the original members of NAAP’s Philadelphia chapter, Dr. Said has organized concerts, lectures, and other events to encourage Arab-American involvement in the community.

She currently works at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in Princeton, New Jersey, as an associate director in Medical Affairs, specializing in HIV medicine. Prior to working in Princeton, she held the role of visiting pharmacist with BMS Medical Affairs in Cairo, Egypt.

She received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Maryland in Baltimore. She continued her post-graduate training at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, completing a residency in Drug Information. Dr. Said then completed the American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists George P. Provost Editorial Internship in Bethesda, Maryland.

Karen Taylor Bass

Karen Taylor Bass, president of TaylorMade Media LLC, has amassed an astounding list of accomplishments since launching her own publicity firm in 1999 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Through her hands on approach at TaylorMade Media, she has introduced the masses to two groundbreaking musicians—D’Angelo and Jill Scott. Her clientele includes Harper Collins Publishers, Shrine of the Black Madonna Bookstores and Cultural Center, Urban League of Long Island, Home Action USA, ABC Networks, Coca Cola USA, Sony Music, Mitchell & Titus CPA, WKYW-TV, Hidden Beach Recordings to name a few.

Her boutique agency, which is now based in Valley Stream, Long Island, has been able to compete with the major players for coverage in such A-List media outlets as The Los Angeles Times, TIME, Ebony, Vanity Fair, Essence, the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” and the “Oprah” show just to name a few.

Taylor-Bass, who started her career as a fundraiser, is using her finely crafted communication skills to inspire and motivate the everyday person through her personal/professional development mentoring services. She contributed to the best selling “Souls of My Sisters” in 2001. She is one of the country’s up-and-coming speakers and has spoken at such institutions as her alma mater St. John’s University, Learning Annex of New York City, Columbia University, and National Black Public Relations Society.

Her “As Powerful As You Want To Be” Public Relations & Mentoring Boot Camp series is currently offered in eight cities; and, the TaylorMade Media e-newsletter is serviced to over 1000 students/professionals monthly offering career and professional development tips; beauty; arts and news that pertains to the African Diaspora. In 2005, Taylor-Bass was the recipient of the NABFEME (National Association of Black Female Executives in Music & Entertainment) PR Executive of The Year Award.

Mona Aboelnaga Kanaan

With over 15 years of experience in the private equity investment and investment banking fields, Mona Aboelnaga Kanaan is President of Proctor Investment Managers, a company she co-founded with the backing of the merchant banking arm of National Bank Financial of Canada. Proctor seeks to invest in boutique investment management firms and provide them with a sales and marketing platform for growth. At Proctor, Aboelnaga Kanaan oversees Proctor's strategic development, acquisition program and international distribution strategy.

Before co-founding Proctor, Aboelnaga Kanaan was a founding partner of Overture Asset Managers, LLC. In her role as Senior Managing Director and Head of Strategic Development and Acquisitions for Overture, she spearheaded acquisitions and partnership agreements with affiliate and partnership firms.

Previously, Aboelnaga Kanaan was a Senior Vice President at Communications Equity Associates where she worked on expanding the firm's private equity business as well as investing in and launching new businesses. Prior to joining CEA, she was a Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Siguler Guff & Company, a NY-based diversified private equity firm with over $3 billion under management. Prior to that, Aboelnaga Kanaan held various positions at PaineWebber Investment Banking in the Leveraged Transactions and Financial Institutions Groups. She began her career as a financial analyst at Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management.

Aboelnaga Kanaan earned a B.S. in Economics and Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. in Finance and International Business from Columbia Business School. She serves on the boards of the Arab Bankers Association of North America, American Near East Refugee Aid and the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding and is also a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Aboelnaga Kanaan resides in New York City with her husband Sabi Kanaan and their daughters, Layla and Selma.

Walid el-Gabry is founder and current President of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists' Association, whose members are participating in this year's NAAP conference. He is a seasoned Anglo-Egyptian journalist with two decades of experience in Europe and the US.

He recently joined Bloomberg News on the Finance desk after managing a team of editors at Dow Jones Newswires for a year and a half. He came to the US with the Financial Times where he spent almost nine years in London and New York, latterly responsible for corporate coverage of the Americas.

Walid`s newspaper career began in Istanbul in the late 1980s as a reporter for Turkish publisher Sabah. He then worked for Canadian publisher Thomson Corp at various UK titles, becoming industry editor of a major Scottish daily newspaper.

He was a judge in the 2007 Gerald Loeb business journalism awards.

Moderator: Ammal Elhaddad

Ammal Elhaddad is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Health and Public Administration at the University of Miami.

She has worked as Editor of Community Affairs for METV, serving as a liaison to the Arab/Muslim community of South Florida and has coordinated events with various national organizations such as AAI, ADC, and local community, health and law enforcement agencies.

Ammal has also served in AmeriCorps in the first Arab Resource Corps, a nationwide community and social service program organized by ACCESS. As the Community Outreach Coordinator for the Arab Cultural Center of San Francisco, Ammal was responsible for building coalitions with Bay Area cultural organizations and conducting Cultural Competency Trainings for local agencies.

She was also recently awarded the Women of the Year Award by the National Association of Professional and Executive Women (NAPEW), and was also inducted into the National Scholars Honor Society.

She currently serves on the Miami-Dade County Asian American Advisory Board and was selected to direct the Seeds for Peace Initiative in the Miami-Dade County School System. On a national level, she serves on AAI’s National Policy Council.

Ammal holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Miami where she established OASIS, the Organization of Arab American Students, and held several leadership positions in student government and health organizations on campus.

She plans on running for State Senate in the 2010 Elections.

Saïd Amin is an entrepreneur with a passion for harnessing the power of the Internet to improve the daily lives of people. Mr. Amin is the CEO/Founder of NicheClick Media (NicheClickMedia.com), an operator of niche online properties, with a focus on ethnic communities.

The company’s portfolio of brands include ArabLounge.com, IranianPersonals.com, HyeSingles.com, EligibleGreeks.com and the soon to be launched community, Nuzizo.com. Nuzizo is an online city that helps people share and discover information, opportunity and entertainment with friends and family. It is a resource that enables folks to reconnect with their communities in order to build consensus and organize culturally, socially, and politically.

Amin was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up in France and the United States. He has traveled extensively, visiting 19 countries to date.

Amin graduated from Clark University, with a B.A. in International Relations.

Imam Ahmad Hamad Chebli

Imam Ahmad Hamad Chebli was born in 1948 in Tripoli, northern Lebanon. In his youth, he was sent to a religious boarding school in Beirut, where he came under the tutelage of mentor and life-long role model Hassan Khaled. Khaled taught him the value of interfaith understanding and the precepts of nonviolence. He continued his studies in Islamic theology at the world's oldest university, Al-Azar University in Cairo, Egypt. Upon the invitation of the Muslim World League, Chebli came to the United States in 1982 to serve in a mosque in New Orleans. In June of 1986, he was invited to serve as the imam (religious director) of the Islamic Society of Central Jersey (ISCJ). In this capacity, he oversees all religious activities of the ISCJ and travels widely; visiting universities, colleges, schools and places of worship to speak about Islam. He never misses an opportunity for worship, in his own mosque, when invited to others, or as a participant at interfaith services. He was invited to speak and offer prayers on the floor of Congress at an interfaith service during Gov. Christie Todd Whitman's second-term inauguration. On the one-year anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, under the direction of Imam Chebli, ISCJ hosted an interfaith service that brought together 3,000 individuals in remembrance. In addition to his many engagements and duties, Imam Chebli also hosts a weekly radio show Reading from the Koran, at 7:05 PM each Saturday on WING-AM 1300. Chebli is married and the father of six children, all of whom are active with ISCJ.

Moderator: Ali Shaikley

Ali is an Iraqi-American attorney and entrepreneur living in Washington, DC. He has written and spoken on a range of Middle Eastern political, business and social issues.

Ali holds a B.A. in Economics and Arabic from UCLA, an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, an M.B.A. from Oxford University, and a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School.

Tapping Our Wealth: Effective Fundraising Strategies for Activists and Organizations

In addition to her work NNAAC and ACCESS, Kim has worked in a number of organizations as an advocate for the civil and human rights of Arab Americans and Palestinians.

Kim received her B.A. in Political Science and History from Taylor University

Jeanette Mansour

Jeanette Mansour is a Program Consultant at the C.S. Mott Foundation and has worked there since 1978. Mansour advises on special projects for the Foundation's senior management and facilitates the review and processing of a diverse portfolio of grants ranging from the development of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy in the U.S. and Central/Eastern Europe, to grants that support improved race and ethnic relations, and peacebuilding programs.

In June 2001, Mansour received the Peacemaker/Peacebuilder award from the National Peace Foundation for her work in supporting conflict resolution/peacebuilding programs in the Former Soviet Union.

Mansour received her bachelor's degree in history and political science from Marygrove College and her master's degree in international law and international relations with a focus on the Middle East from the Catholic University of America. Mansour has also completed postgraduate work at the University of Michigan and the American University of Beirut.

She has served on several non profit boards in her home community of Flint Michigan including current board membership with the American Arab Heritage Council.

An American of Egyptian heritage, Sami Elmansoury is currently a first-year law student at The City University of New York, with a planned concentration in immigrant justice and civil rights

He developed a resounding interest in the plight of Arab-Americans while serving as an intern and translator for a Civil Rights attorney in New Brunswick, NJ from 2003-2006.

Sami served as Co-Founder and Vice President of Students for Belief, Awareness, Knowledge, and Activism (BAKA), an organization dedicated to justice and moderation in Middle-Eastern affairs, from 2005-2006 and as Co-Founder and President of The Human Development Project, an apolitical organization dedicated to bringing together the shared values of fundraising and community service amongst the Arab and Jewish communities, from 2003-2005.

In 2005, he was the first recipient of the People of the Book Award, presented by Rutgers University for his work in promoting greater understanding between various communities in the United States.

Sami is holds a B.A. in Political Science and French Language from Rutgers University.

The Immigration Debate: Engaging in the National Dialogue and Protecting the Community

Ms. Abdelkader is the assistant supervising attorney of the Immigration Representation Project at Legal Services of New Jersey, a large non-profit law firm where she has successfully handled a variety cases involving claims to Political Asylum.

The author of "A Muslim Woman's Guide to Her Civil Rights: When Faith Practices Trigger Discrimination in America," Ms. Abdelkader served as a Civil Rights Attorney at the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.

She has also worked as a cooperating attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Arab-American Justice Project run by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in New York, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she provided research on the case of Maher Arar.

Ms. Abdelkader has been quoted in press reports by a number of news media and enjoys an extensive public speaking record at law schools, universities and community forums.

She is a past Board Member of The Association of Muslim American Lawyers, a local bar association based in New York. She presently serves on the New York Muslim Bar Association's Board of Directors, the New Jersey Muslim Lawyer's Association's Steering Committee and the Civil Rights Committee of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers.

Mohamed Rali Badissy

Mohamed Rali Badissy is an associate in the New York office of Latham & Watkins. His practice focuses on international litigation and arbitration, anti-trust and white collar crime.

Badissy’s representative matters include representing asylum applicants and victims of domestic violence in deportation proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

He is currently working with Sanctuary for Families to file their first round of U-Visa applications and provide additional comments upon the newly published regulations.

He received his BA with honors from Occidental College and his JD with High Honors, Order of the Coif, Order of the Barristers from the University of Washington, 2006.

Thomas Ragland joined Maggio & Kattar in October 2006 as a Senior Attorney. He specializes in the immigration consequences of criminal convictions, waivers of inadmissibility, asylum, adjustment of status and naturalization, detention and bond issues, and deportation defense.

Ragland earned his juris doctor degree, cum laude, from Boston College Law School in 1994. He has more than 10 years of immigration litigation experience while working in government, having served as an Attorney Advisor and Senior Attorney Manager at the Board of Immigration Appeals and later as an Appellate Attorney at the Office of Immigration Litigation ("OIL") in the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. He is a member of the District of Columbia and Maryland bars.

Ragland's publications include "Presumed Incredible: A View from the Dissent," 75 Interpreter Releases 1541 (Nov. 9, 1998), and "Burma's Rohingyas in Crisis: Protection of 'Humanitarian' Refugees under International Law," 14 B.C. Third World L.J. 301 (Summer 1994).

Moderator: Nadeen Al-Jijakli

Nadeen Al-Jijakli is co-founder of the New York chapter of the Network of Arab-American Professionals (NAAP). Al-Jijakli is an immigration attorney with Maggio & Kattar in Washington, DC. She represents clients in complex immigration cases involving deportation defense, adjustment of status and naturalization, asylum, detention issues, and federal court litigation. Al-Jijakli is licensed in the District of Columbia, New York, and New Jersey.

Prior to joining Maggio & Kattar, Al-Jijakli worked at the New York office of Klasko, Rulon, Stock, & Seltzer, handling business immigration matters in the medical and university research sectors.

Al-Jijakli received her B.A. in Economics from New York University and her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School.

Khalil Jahshan is Executive Director of Pepperdine University Seaver College’s Washington DC Internship Program and Lecturer in International Studies and Languages. He is a Middle East consultant with extensive expertise in Arab-American bilateral relations and United States policy in the Middle East and is a frequent lecturer before foreign policy panels and on American and international media to discuss American policies and Middle East issues

A long-time activist on Arab-American issues, Mr. Jahshan served at the forefront of many Arab American organizations including as Director of the national office of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG), Assistant Director of the Palestine Research and Educational Center, and President of the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA). As President of NAAA his responsibilities included directing the political efforts of the only full-time Arab-American foreign policy lobby based in Washington, D.C. Effective January 1, 2000, NAAA was merged with ADC. Between 2000 and 2003, Mr. Jahshan served as Executive Vice President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).

A native of Nazareth, Palestine, Mr. Jahshan completed his elementary and secondary education there. In 1969, he traveled to the United States to pursue his college education, and received a bachelor’s degree in political science and French from Harding University in 1972. Mr. Jahshan began graduate work in political science at Memphis State University, and completed his graduate coursework in political science and Middle East studies at the University of Chicago in 1977.

Sarah Leah Whitson

Sarah Leah Whitson is the Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, an independent human rights and international humanitarian law monitoring organization, headquartered in New York City, with regional Middle East offices in Cairo, Jerusalem and Beirut. In that capacity, she supervises the research and reporting of the staff, represents the division in meetings with government officials, and responds to interview requests from the media. In recent years, the division has reported extensively on the conduct of states and armed groups in the conflicts in Iraq, Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Lebanon.

Ms. Whitson has conducted numerous human rights missions in the Middle East, including missions for Human Rights Watch throughout the Middle East, the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Harvard Study Team and International Study Team missions examining the impact of war and sanctions on the Iraqi civilian population, the International Human Rights Law Group's election-monitoring mission in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq, and a fact-finding mission in Southern Lebanon for Madre.

Ms. Whitson has given lectures and presentations at universities and conferences both in the United States and the Middle East. She has appeared as a frequent commentator on domestic and international print, radio and television news.

Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she worked as an attorney in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. Ms. Whitson graduated from Harvard Law School (JD, ’91) and the University of California at Berkeley (BA, 88).

Moderator: Nadine Allaf

Nadine Allaf helped found the Philadelphia chapter of NAAP in 2003 and is currently a Senior Business Systems Analyst with the General Electric Company (GE).

Nadine has an undergraduate degree in Sociology and a Masters degree in Information Systems.

Rafi Dajani is the executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), located in Washington, DC.

Mr. Dajani has been active in promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace and coexistence since 1995. His analysis on Israeli-Palestinian affairs is frequently featured on radio and cable and satellite T.V., including CNN, PBS NewsHour, MSNBC, BBC TV and radio, Al Arabiyya television, Al Jazeera Arabic and International, and National Public Radio. In addition, Mr. Dajani is a featured speaker nationwide at a variety of venues including universities, churches, synagogues and think tanks.

Mr. Dajani is also a frequent contributor to the national and international print media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, Detroit News, Orlando Sentinel, Jewish Journal, Jerusalem Post, Daily Star, Jordan Times, Gulf News, and Arab News.

Mr. Dajani was born and lived the first 19 years of his life in the Middle East. He received a B.A. in Political Science from the American University of Beirut (AUB) and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Central Florida.

Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American writer and activist. He is the co-author and editor of Between the Lines: Readings in Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S 'War on Terror' (Haymarket Books, 2007, co-written with Tikva Honig-Parnass); and Towards a New Internationalism: Readings in Globalization, the Global Justice Movement and Palestinian Liberation (co-written with Ala El Azzeh, for Muwatin: The Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, Ramallah (Arabic)).

His articles have been featured in a number of publications including Monthly Review, Journal of Palestine Studies, Znet, Counterpunch, and the International Socialist Review, and have been translated into French, German, Norwegian, Dutch, and Hebrew.

Haddad was born in Kuwait, and lived in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1997 and 2005. There he co-founded the monthly journal "Between the Lines" with Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass in 2000, as well as the Beit Jibrin Cultural Center - Handala, a progressive educational youth and community center located in the Beit Jibrin Refugee Camp (est. 1999).

He currently lives in New York City where he is completing a MA in Near East Studies and Journalism at New York University.

Nadia Hijab is Senior Fellow at the DC-based office of the Institute for Palestine Studies, and co-director of its Washington, D.C. office.

The Institute is an independent non-profit research organization whose flagship Journal of Palestine Studies, co-published with University of California Press, is a leading resource on the Israeli-Arab conflict. Since it was established in Beirut in 1963, the Institute has published over 500 books and its library is the largest on Palestine in the Arab world (www.palestine-studies.org).

Hijab's first book, Womanpower: The Arab debate on women at work was published by Cambridge University Press. She co-authored Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel (I. B. Tauris).

She was Editor-in-Chief of the London-based Middle East Magazine before moving to New York in 1989 to join the United Nations. She served at the UN as a senior development officer until 1999 when she established her own business, Development Analysis and Communication Services.

Hijab is a past president of the Association of Arab American University Graduates. She helped to found the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and serves on its advisory board.

Moderator: Dena Qaddumi

Dena Qaddumi has been involved in the Palestine Solidarity movement for the past seven years. She is an active member of NAAP-NY's Political Committee and in this capacity has helped to organize a number of events geared towards activating and mobilizing the Arab-American community.

She is particularly interested in drawing parallels with other communities facing similar struggles and was heavily involved in the organization of a workshop and mass action in New York entitled 'Connecting Walls, From Palestine to Mexico'.

Qaddumi is an architect by profession and holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin. She was born in Texas to a Palestinian father and a Mexican mother, was raised in Qatar, and currently works in London.

Samer Abdelnour is a PhD student at the Richard Ivey School of Business and a founding member of the Foundation for Sustainable Enterprise and Development (FSED).

After starting his career in corporate marketing, Abdelnour left the corporate world to work and live with Palestinian refugees in Beirut.

Over the past two years he has been engaged as a project coordinator and field researcher in a DFAIT and IDRC-funded project which seeks to promote sustainable enterprise development and post-war reconstruction in Darfur and Southern Sudan. The project is based at the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University.

As the director of the Crimes Against Humanity program, Betsy Apple leads Human Rights First’s efforts to address mass atrocities at every stage of conflict, utilizing a combination of legal, political, legislative, and public advocacy strategies.

Apple has extensive experience as an international human rights lawyer, focusing on issues at the intersection of human rights, environmental abuse and gender justice. Before joining Human Rights First, Apple served as deputy director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organization, based in New York. Also, as managing and legal director of EarthRights International, she focused upon government and corporate accountability for human rights violations and environmental abuse.

Apple has served as legal consultant to various institutions including Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Clinic, Refugees International, and the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma. She is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she teaches Human Rights Advocacy.

Earlier in her career, Apple worked with the Volunteer Legal Services Program in San Francisco, focusing primarily upon family law and civil rights. She also practiced law as a litigation attorney at the San Francisco law firm Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon.

Apple graduated from Brown University and Boston College Law School.

Suliman Giddo, Co-Founder and President of Darfur Peace & Development, is a graduate of Khartoum University and received Masters degrees from Strayer University, in Business Administration and Fordham University in Humanitarian Assistance. His post-graduate studies included Human Resources at Maduri University, India, and Professional Management Institute at New Jersey, UK. He also earned certificates from the Institute of Virginia and a Certificate in Disaster Studies at the University of Wisconsin. He worked 12 years for the United Arab Emirates Government and six years at the American Red Cross. He also worked as an adjunct at Indiana Business college and currently he is A research assistant & PhD student at George Mason University, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He has several published articles about the conflict in Darfur, including the new book about the forgiveness in the unresolved conflicts, to be published on spring 2008.

Moderator: Sherif Sadek

Egyptian-born Sherif Sadek came to the United States in 1994 to study computer science but quickly fell in love with the cinematic medium. In 2000, after graduating with a BFA in Film and Video, he moved back to Egypt to work for Geo Productions.

While at Geo Productions, Sadek worked on a documentary film about the Bisharin people, a nomadic tribe that lives along the Red Sea coast from Egypt to Somalia. He spent five weeks on the border between Egypt and Sudan filming, studying, and living with the Bisharin people.

Sadek returned to New York City in 2001 and has been a New York-based filmmaker ever since. He is currently working on a documentary about taxi drivers in Cairo.

Sadek has been an active member of NAAP-NY since 2003 and in 2006 organized a lecture entitled: Darfur, Seperate Fact from Fiction.

Ervand Abrahamian

Ervand Abrahamian, an Armenian born in Iran and raised in England, is well qualified by education and experience to teach world and Middle East history.

He has published Iran Between Two Revolutions, The Iranian Mojahedin, Khomeinism, Tortured Confessions, and Inventing the Axis of Evil.

He teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center, and has taught at Princeton, New York University, and Oxford University. He is currently working on two books: one on The CIA Coup in Iran; and another, A History of Modern Iran, for Cambridge University Press.

Abrahamian holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University, and a B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University.

Trita Parsi is the author of Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States (Yale University Press, 2007.) He wrote his Doctoral thesis on Israeli-Iranian relations under Professor Francis Fukuyama (and Drs. Zbigniew Brzezinski, R. K. Ramazani, Jakub Grygiel, Charles Doran) at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 2006. Dr. Parsi is one of the few people in the US - if not the only one - that has traveled both to Iran and Israel and interviewed top officials in these countries on the state of Israeli-Iranian relations. Dr. Parsi's articles on Middle East affairs have been published in the Financial Times, Jane's Intelligence Review, the Globalist, the Jerusalem Post, The Forward, BitterLemons and the Daily Star.

He is a frequent commentator on US-Iranian relations and Middle Eastern affairs, and has appeared on BBC World News, PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN (Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room, Anderson Cooper 360°), CNN International (Your World Today), Al Jazeera, C-Span, NPR, MSNBC, Voice of America and British Channel 4.

He has served as an advisor to Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH18) on Middle East issues and is a co-founder and current President of the National Iranian American Council (www.niacouncil.org), a non-partisan, non-profit organization promoting Iranian-American participation in American civic life.

Dr. Parsi was born in Iran and grew up in Sweden. He earned a Master's Degree in International Relations at Uppsala University, a second Master's Degree in Economics at Stockholm School of Economics and a PhD in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University SAIS.

Moderator: Yasmin Hamidi

Yasmin Hamidi currently works in a freelance capacity for organizations in need of public relations services and TV news programs in need of production assistance such as Fenton Communications and Al Jazeera Children’s Channel.

Prior to freelancing, Hamidi served as Assistant Communications Director for the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, a non-sectarian, non-profit focused on combating religious discrimination and promoting conflict resolution for several years.

Hamidi serves as Media Facilitator for NAAP-NY and has worked on its Leadership and Administrative Committee for over four years. She has worked with and/or appeared on MTV News, ABC News, CNN, NBC, Fox, Al Jazeera, Ha’aretz, NY-1, The New York Times, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times, among others.

During the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, Hamidi was evacuated from Beirut and organized an emergency press conference in NYC for American evacuees of the war to tell their stories. The press conference was covered by multiple media outlets including TIME magazine, Fox-5, the NY Daily News, and Newsday.

Yasmin is an Iranian-American; her father is an Arab from Ahwaz, and her mother, a Turk from Tabriz. She has made modest contributions to promote the rights of Iran’s ethnic minorities.

As an Iraqi refugee in Jordan and now as one in the US, Nour Alkhal is able to provide first-hand accounts on the status of Iraqi refugees and is able to speak to the realties on the ground in Iraq.

In August of 2005, Nour worked as translator for American freelance journalist Steven Vincent in Iraq until both were kidnapped. Upon their release, Steven was gunned down and Nour was shot but survived the wounds. After many efforts on the part of Steven’s wife and other advocacy groups, Nour was able to escape to the US.

He aspires to complete the book which uncovers the truths to the war in Iraq that Steven had begun before his death.

Noah Baker Merrill:

Noah Baker Merrill spent four months living and working among Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. During his time there, Merrill conducted interviews, worked to secure release for detainees, advocated for improvements of aid to Iraqi families, and consulted for UNHCR missions.

He now coordinates the Direct Aid Initiative, which provides medical care to displaced Iraqis. The Initiative is a project of the Electronic Iraq news and analysis website where Merrill is a regular contributor.

He has worked on conflicts and peace-building efforts in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Merrill is a lifelong member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Kristele Younes:

Kristele Younes joined Refugees International in February of 2006 after working as a Legal Officer with the Coalition for the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

As part of the RI advocacy team, Younes has conducted a humanitarian assessment in Chad, focusing on the plight of refugees from Darfur and the Central African Republic.

Prior to joining RI, Younes worked with Médecins du Monde and the International Rescue Committee in Afghanistan, where she managed protection programs. She was also part of a team which explored the possibility of a joint European Union/UN/DRC government program to re-establish the judicial system in Bunia, a war-torn town in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has worked on Rule of Law issues with the OSCE’s human rights department in post-was Bosnia.

Younes has a law degree from McGill and a Master’s in Public International Law and InternationalOrganizations from the Sorbonne. Younes is a Canadian and Lebanese citizen, and is fluent in French, Arabic and Spanish.

Moderator: Lara Shbeyr Maxey

Lara Shbeyr Maxey is a co-founder of NAAP-Los Angeles. Shbeyr Maxey, whose family immigrated to the United Sates due to the Lebanese Civil War, understands first hand the trials and tribulations one has to face after leaving their home during a time of conflict.

Shbery Maxey holds a Masters Degree in Political Science/International Relations and is currently working on the Kucinich 2008 Presidential campaign.

Rebecca Abou-Chedid

Abou-Chedid is Arab American Institute’s (AAI) National Political Director. She has worked at AAI since August 2003, as Public Affairs Coordinator, Government Relations and Policy Analyst, and Director of Government Relations before assuming her current role. Abou-Chedid has extensive experience working on behalf of the Arab American community with federal agencies and congressional offices on foreign policy, civil liberties, and immigration policy issues. She is the author of Countdown and Election Insider. Abou-Chedid is a graduate of Cornell University where she received a B.A. in Economics and Near Eastern Studies. Abou-Chedid has also been published in The Boston Globe, The Daily Star and An Nahar.

Andre Sayegh is a champion for children and an advocate for adults. Born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey by his mother, an immigrant from Syria, Andre excelled in education after a less than stellar high school career. He graduated with the highest honors from Seton Hall University and earned a Master's degree in Public Policy and Administration from Columbia University.

Andre currently serves as the President of the Paterson Board of Education. Moreover, he is the Executive Director of the Paterson Alliance. He also teaches at William Paterson University and Passaic County Community College. Andre is currently running for the Paterson, New Jersey's 6th Ward City Council Seat, which holds one of the largest concentrations of Arab-Americans in the United States.

Maram Abdelhamid

Abdelhamid is a Community Relations Associate at AAI. Abdelhamid’s career in political organizing and activism began with her work as a legislative assistant to Colorado State Rep. Desiree Sanchez. Abdelhamid then worked as the National Field Organizer for 21st Century Democrats and served as deputy campaign manager for Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia. Abdelhamid earned her B.A. from the University of Denver in Political Science and Economics.

Moderator: Samer Khalaf

Mr. Khalaf is a senior associate with the New York law firm of Barnes Iaccarino, Virginia, Ambinder & Shepherd and specializes in Union-Side labor law and ERISA. He received his BA in Political Science from graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University. He also attended The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., where he received a Juris Doctorate with a Certificate in Law and Public Policy. Mr. Khalaf is the Co-Chair of the NJ Arab American Democratic Caucus and has recently been appointed to serve as the Passaic County Chairman of the NJ for Obama Campaign. He also serves as the Northern New Jersey Chairman of Democrats2000, an organization which is responsible for recruiting and providing support for young Democratic candidates in NJ. In early 2006, Mr. Khalaf was appointment by NJ Governor Jon Corzine to the Governor's Advisory Panel on Police Standards and recently he was appointed to the Governor's Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Immigration Policy. Mr. Khalaf serves on the Boards of Directors of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - NJ Chapter, Mental Health Association in Passaic County, the Arab American Family Center of New Jersey, and the Arab American Family Support Center of Brooklyn. He is a member of the Arab American Institute’s National Policy Council. He has served on the Board of Trustee of St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in Teaneck, NJ.