Moderators

Francesca Bacci is an interdisciplinary curator and scholar specializing in museuma and visual studies and the history of modern and contemporary art. As a Fulbright fellow, Bacci earned a PhD and a Curatorial Certificate from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ, 2004). Prior to joining Zayed University, she worked as Associate Professor and Head of the B.A. in Museum Studies at the Department of Art + Design, University of Tampa, FL, where she also served as Chief Curator of University Galleries, Chair of the Exhibition Committee, and Academic Senator. She has also lectured at Oxford University, Harvard University, and Rutgers University, among others.

Her scholarly contributions include the acclaimed volume Art and the Senses (Oxford University Press, 2011 and 2013). She is currently writing a book on UAE’s intangible cultural heritage, focusing on the history, importance, and representation of perfume.

Jeannine Chandler is an Associate Professor in Liberal Studies at NYU (Washington Square). She teaches East Asian Global Cultures, as well as Senior Seminars, including The Silk Road with Peter C. Valenti. Her research interests include the history of the intersections of religion, politics, and violence in Asia, particularly concerning Tibet and China.

Dr Taner Doğan is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Communication at Queen Margaret University and a Guest Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is the author of Communication Strategies in Turkey: Erdogan, the AKP and Political Messaging (I.B.Tauris, 2021).

Caroline Garaway is a Professor Human Ecology at UCL. She is the Vice Dean (Education and Planning), Social and Historical Sciences and served as Head of Teaching, UCL Anthropology from 2014-2018. Dr. Garaway's research interests include: 

(1) Anthropological and political ecological approaches to studying livelihoods of natural-resource-dependent populations. Focus; small-scale fishers, and fisher/farmer populations in floodplain/estuarine environments. Research in Asia (Mekong Basin), East Africa and UK (Thames estuary).

(2) Local ecological knowledge/practice-based knowledge versus scientific knowledge. 

(3) Fisheries enhancement and actor-network theory. 

(4) Theories of learning, practice theory and research-based education

Sabyn Javeri-Jillani is Senior Lecturer of Writing, Literature & Creative Writing and the Program head of Undergraduate Writing at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her research interests include translations of Urdu women writers, transcultural feminism and decolonizing pedagogy. She is the author of Hijabistan (Harper Collins, 2019) and the novel Nobody Killed Her (Harper Collins, 2017) and has edited Ways of Being, an anthology of Pakistani women’s creative non-fiction (Women Unlimited, 2023) and two multilingual anthologies of student writing titled The Arzu Anthology of Student Voices (Vol I & II. HUP, 2019, 2018). Her writing has been published in the South Asian Review,  Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Wasafiri, London Magazine, amongst other publications.

Manjeet Ramgotra is a Senior Lecturer in Political Thought in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS University of London. She is a Fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation, member of the Centre for Comparative Political Thought at SOAS, and was a visiting researcher at the School of Politics and IR at QMUL. Her research examines the history of republican ideas extending from classical European to 20th century anti-colonial political thought, on which she has published several articles.  She has also written several pieces on decolonising the curriculum, and in 2021 co-edited Decolonising Curricula and Pedagogy in Higher Education (Routledge).  Most recently she co-edited with Simon Choat a new textbook called Rethinking Political Thinkers that came out with Oxford University Press last March.  

Professor Siddiqi’s research, grounded in the study of Bangladesh, joins development studies, transnational feminist theory, and the anthropology of Islam and human rights. She has published extensively on the global garment industry, non-state gender justice systems, and the cultural politics of Islam and nationalism in Bangladesh. She is currently engaged in a project on economic development, discourses of empowerment and the travels of civilizational feminisms. Her publications are available here. 

Professor Siddiqi is a member of the New York University Society of Fellows, on the advisory board of Dialectical Anthropology, and on the editorial board of Routledge’s Women in Asia Publication Series. She is on the Executive Committee of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS), and an Advisory Council member of the South Asian feminist network, Sangat. She has frequently collaborated with Bangladeshi human rights organizations including Ain o Salish Kendra, Nagorik Uddyog, and Bangladesh Legal and Services Trust (BLAST).

Peter C. Valenti has been teaching Global Studies and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies since 1999, over 13 at NYU. His focus on curriculum has extended into secondary education, including teaching graduate courses on how to teach the Middle East & Islam in high school for the Social Studies Education program in NYU Steinhardt, running an annual summer institute for K-12 teachers, and participating in various teaching workshops at NYU and high schools in the NY-NJ metro area. His academic specialization is in the socioeconomic and political history of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, as well as pursuing research in sociocultural dynamics in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamist movements, and Islamic and Arabic literature. In addition to his academic work and publications, Valenti has worked in a variety of editorial and media positions, contributing to the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, and World Press Review.

Camilla Boisen is a Senior Lecturer of Writing and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Academic Planning for Arts and Humanities at New York University Abu Dhabi. Previously, Camilla was a research fellow at the National History Museum, Frederiksborg Castle in Denmark. In South Africa, she held post-doctoral research fellowships in political theory at the University of Johannesburg and the University of the Witwatersrand. She has published articles in, among others, History of European Ideas, the Journal of International Political Theory, and Grotiana. She is co-editor of Distributive Justice Debates in Political and Social Thought: Perspectives on Finding a Fair Share (Routledge, 2016). Camilla has taught courses in political theory and the history of political thought in the UK, Denmark, and South Africa. She serves on the editorial board for Theoria – A Journal of Social and Political Theory and Grotiana.

Hasan Johnson has 20+ years of professional experience in education, IDBEA, mental health, K-12 education, college teaching, clinical supervision, and teacher and counselor education, supervision, training and professional development. He has worked as an instructor at Rutgers University and Montclair State University in the USA. He has been in the UAE for five years and has worked at Zayed University where he served as a faculty member (Professor of Practice), Assistant Dean of Students Affairs for the College of Education and as Chair for the Department of Education in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He currently works as the Head of Training and Education for the Office of Inclusion and Equity at the NYU Abu Dhabi campus. In his role at NYU Abu Dhabi, Hasan has created and implemented a variety of IDBEA based trainings for faculty, staff, supervisors, and administrators on a range of topics that seek to support all stakeholders in creating more diverse, inclusive, and equitable programs, services and spaces on campus. 

Dr Chijioke Obasi is the Director for Global Programs Inclusive Engagement at NYU. She is based at NYUL but her remit covers all the non-portal NYU global sites. Dr Obasi has only recently joined NYU from her most recent post as Associate Professor in Gender, Equality, and Diversity at Coventry University. She has 20 years experience of working in UK higher education in various roles, including as Program Leader for a suite of equality and diversity courses, including the Masters in Promoting Equality and Managing Diversity. Within this role she has trained many of the DEI practitioners in the field. Obasi is well published in areas of identity, intersectionality and researcher positionality. Her PhD research “The Visible Invisibles” examines the work experiences of Black women and culturally Deaf women in a wide range of UK workplaces. Obasi also has a good track record as a researcher and DEI practitioner including her work on decolonisation of the academic research field. She also works closely with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, having recently presented a workshop on decolonisation of counselling and psychotherapy research.

Adedamola Osinulu is a clinical associate professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at NYU Liberal Studies, where he teaches about African cultural production. His current research, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at religious sites in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa, examines how African Pentecostals think about space. He also investigates how African artists draw on ideas from beyond their borders to create a transnational African identity. His book-length manuscript, City Aflame: Making Pentecostal Space in Lagos, posits that Nigerian Pentecostals create a sense of efficacy around their religious sites by drawing from of Lagos’s spatial practices and social relations. He is the author of “The Road to Redemption: Performing Pentecostal Citizenship in Lagos” published in The Arts of Citizenship in African Cities: Infrastructures and Spaces of Belonging, and other scholarly essays. Through his teaching he encourages students to synthesize new ideas by helping them see connections in otherwise disparate phenomena. Osinulu earned his PhD from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures and has held a fellowship with the Michigan Society of Fellows, University of Michigan.