Dear Alumni and Friends,
From the global pandemic that sent us all working remotely, to the summer of protests and the historic election, this certainly has been an intense and interesting year. With a new president and the distribution of the vaccine in sight, perhaps everyone will rest a little better.
We moved all classes and institute operations online in March, and one upshot of this change is the increase in students participating in virtual online foreign language study at prestigious US institutions over the summer. In September, we welcomed Professor Marc Lynch back as Program Director of the Middle East Studies Program, and we also welcomed a few new student staff members: Carla Dell’ Angelica joined us as the new Program Assistant, and Karisa Gingerich joined us as our Social Media Assistant. Keep an eye out for exciting new content on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
In terms of the IMES virtual lecture series, we had a terrific summer and fall, and I encourage you to check out the great line up we have for the spring, including scholars who are based in far away places that we have a hard time bringing to GW in person. Another positive thing to come out of the move to online has been our ability to reach a wider audience for events, including our workshop series for advanced graduate students. We also received an overwhelming response from alumni to participate in the Alumni Mentoring Program. Thank you all for your continued support of and connectedness to the Institute.
I welcome you to check out the rest of the newsletter for profiles of the exciting work being done by faculty, fellow alumni and visiting scholars. Wishing everyone a happy holiday season. Stay safe and be well, and we look forward to connecting with you in the coming year.
Mona Atia
Director, IMES
Alumni Spotlight: Anna McMahon, BA ’15
Initially planning to major in International Affairs, Anna McMahon fell in love with the Middle East Studies program instead and graduated with her BA in 2015. While at GW, Anna interned with the American Taskforce for Palestine and completed studies in both Hebrew...
Meet the Visiting Scholars of IMES
Sina Azodi, ESIA BA '10, MA '13 Sina Azodi is a PhD candidate in International Affairs at the University of South Florida. His research interests include international security, nuclear non-proliferation, and US-Iranian relations. He previously worked as a Research...
Faculty Book Spotlight
Al-Munjiz Advanced Business Arabic By Mohssen Esseesy How did you come up with the idea of writing a textbook on Business Arabic? My interest in business Arabic began in 2008, when GW-CIBER expanded its scope to include business languages. With a small seed grant I...
IMES Visiting Faculty Spotlight: Kristin Diwan
Kristin Diwan is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. She works at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations with an emphasis on social movements and political identity. Her current projects concern...
Alumni Abroad: Rawan Alkhatib, MA ’17
Rawan Alkhatib graduated from the Middle East Studies MA program in 2017. She chose the Elliott School because of the graduate program's focus on writing policy-type papers, specifically consolidating the wide breadth of academic research on the Middle East region to...
Project on Middle East Political Science
The Project on Middle East Political Science, POMEPS, is a collaborative network designed to enhance the broader Middle East’s political science field and its engagement with the broader academic discipline, public policy, and the public sphere. POMEPS seeks to shape...
Don’t miss these upcoming IMES events!
Check your inbox for regular invites to Middle East Studies Student-Alumni happy hours, which feature GW faculty and researchers affiliated with the Institute for Middle East Studies, speaking about their own education, current research, and career advice. To be sure...
