I am a political scientist at the  University of Texas at Dallas’s School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences (EPPS), where I recently completed my PhD. My research examines the intersection of social resistance dynamics, autocratic behavior, and traditional and digital repression, with a regional focus on the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region. My passion for studying civil resistance dynamics was ignited by my experiences with the Tahrir Square protests, where I witnessed firsthand the power of collective action and non-violent resistance in effecting social change, sparking my commitment to understanding the dynamics and complexities of civil resistance movements. 

My dissertation, "The Architecture of Repression: Digital Governance, Institutional Variation, and the Spatial Dynamics of Contention in the MENA," investigates the strategic interplay between civil resistance movements and state repression across digital and physical domains. Through three papers, I examine how regimes deploy digital censorship in the wake of mass mobilization, how foreign surveillance technology investments shape digital authoritarianism, and how physical space structures protest-repression dynamics.

~~~

Born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, I have long been passionate about understanding the political and social dynamics of political behavior and participation in the SWANA region. When I'm not immersed in academic pursuits and seminal works, you can often find me attempting to master the art of baking. My kitchen adventures have led to some interesting results, including a memorable incident where I mistook salt for sugar in a cake recipe. Needless to say, it was a learning experience that left me with a newfound appreciation for precision in both research and baking!