CASA I Fellows 2024-2025 in Jordan
We have another talented group of Fellows for the 2024-2025 year studying with our Qasid Institute faculty in Amman. You are welcome to review their bios below.
Shajiah Amin graduated from The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities with a degree in Computer Science and minor in Arabic. After a six-year career in Cyber Security, she took a break and spent the last year studying Arabic in Amman, Jordan. Her interests include learning languages, traveling, Islamic studies, hammocking, hiking, baking, architecture, hosting and building community. She hopes to apply her Arabic skills to a future career in humanitarian work or diplomacy.
Raza Baqai is a PhD student in Near Eastern Language and Civilization at the University of Chicago. He works on pre-modern Islamic thought and the development of religious concepts such as taqwā within Islamic history. He holds a BS in Public Policy (University of Southern California) and MA in Islamic Studies (University of Chicago Divinity School).
Caleb Deppermann graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Classical Studies and Arabic. He completed BYU’s Arabic study abroad program at the Qasid institute in 2022. His academic interests include the 8th translation movement during the Abbasid Period as well as Plutarch and Middle Platonism. Non-academic interests include fly fishing, fitness, photography, and music. He hopes to pursue a career in academia.
Anna Gianneschi recently completed a Fulbright ETA grant in Irbid, Jordan. She majored in Peace & Conflict Studies at Colgate University (2023) with a double minor in Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies and Spanish. Her junior year, she studied in the UAE on a Boren Scholarship. Anna aspires to use her language skills to mitigate conflict and build peace.
Bechara Karam recently graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A in English and a minor in Arabic. He is currently a Consular and Policy intern at the Embassy of Lebanon in Washington, DC. Last summer, he studied Arabic in Rabat, Morocco with the support of a Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship issued by the U.S. Department of Education. After CASA, he hopes to pursue postgraduate education in Middle East studies.
Leena Khan graduated from Georgetown University with a B.S. in International Politics. She is interested in international human rights and criminal law, particularly as it applies to the Middle East. Following CASA, Leena will begin her 1L year pursuing a J.D. at Harvard Law School.
Casey Lagueras is a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota where she earned a BA in Arabic/SWANA studies as well as a certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language. Casey has spent several years teaching both the English and Arabic languages in the United States at various levels. She is also interested in studying the representations of gender and nationalism in the Levant region.
Rana Morsy recently graduated from New York University with a Master’s degree in Near Eastern Studies. Rana has previously studies Arabic in Oman as well as in Meknes, Morocco as a 2023 Critical Language Scholar. Her academic interests include multilingualism and Arabic diglossia in Morocco and Arabic language pedagogy for non-native speakers.
Olivia Nouriani earned her B.A. from UC Berkeley, where she triple-majored in Arabic, Political Science, and Mathematics. She is interested in migration and diaspora studies and contemporary Southwest Asian politics, and has conducted research on white nationalist conspiracy theories, the transnational circulation of transgender rights in the Global South, and Muslim stewardship of historically Jewish spaces in the Arab world. She supports a free Palestine.
Hannah Raslan holds a B.A. in Global Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. After graduating, she became a Fulbright Scholar and worked at the University of Bahia in Brazil. Her research interests focus on migration and economics
Luis Rivera-Nesrala studied Economics with a concentration in Arabic Language at New York University. He will be pursuing graduate studies in Economics, with a research interest in post-colonial economies as a reference for new economic models for post-independence in occupied states, aiming to ensure effective economic sovereignty.
Laila Shadid graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honors in modern Middle Eastern studies and sociology in 2023. This past year, she began her Fulbright Scholarship as an English Teaching Assistant in Bethlehem, Palestine, before moving to Amman, Jordan, in October, where she continued her Fulbright, studied Arabic, and taught English to young refugee girls. Laila aspires to a career in journalism reporting from the Middle East, specifically from the Levant region.
Alia Ai-Ming Tehzeeb Shahzad graduated from the College at the University of Chicago in 2021 with a BA in public policy and creative writing. She spent a semester studying Islamic Civilizations in Rabat, Morocco. From 2021-2023, she worked at the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York City. Her research interests include censorship and content moderation on Arabic online platforms, as well as the formation of the US security state.
Sally Thomas graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023 with a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) and a minor in Arabic and Islamic Studies. After graduation, she was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Palestine and Jordan. Sally has experience working with refugees in Philadelphia and in development in Amman, and she looks forward to spending more time in Amman and exploring Jordan this year!
Elizabeth Van Flandern (they/she) is studying in Jordan as a Boren Fellow and recently graduated with a MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University where her academic research centered on sexual and reproductive health and state family planning policy. Elizabeth has interned at USAID and served two years with AmeriCorps stationed across the US. After CASA they hope to continue in development work improving access to reproductive care.
CASA I Fellows 2024-2025 in Morocco
We have another talented group of Fellows for the 2024-2025 year studying with our AALIM Institute faculty in Meknes. You are welcome to review their bios below.
Collins Agyeman recently graduated with Honors from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts in Law, History, & Society and a minor in the Arabic Language. He is interested in foreign policy and international relations. As an undergraduate, he completed two years of service with the Department of State where he interned at the US Embassy in Algeria. He hopes to pursue a career in global diplomacy.
Gaal Almor is a PhD student in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. He is interested in 20th century Arab history and recently completed his master’s project, analyzing constructions of femininity and womanhood in the mid-20th century Egyptian women’s magazine “Bint al-Nil.” Gaal is also an avid flamenco dancer and is interested in the confluence of diverse cultures that contributed to the music and dance’s development.
Avery Antill is currently studying Arabic and Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas. She was a member of the Arabic Flagship Program at Indiana University for two years and studied in Amman, Jordan for a semester. She has interned with a refugee resettlement agency and hopes to use her love of languages and international cultures to work with refugees in the Middle East and North Africa.
Nicholas Dahlen recently graduated from Middlebury College with a bachelor’s degree in Arabic and minors in Mathematics and Religion. In addition to courses at Middlebury College, he studied Arabic at Middlebury Language Schools and the Middlebury School Abroad in Amman, Jordan. He looks forward to working toward near native Arabic fluency, learning Moroccan Darija, and exploring Morocco.
Madeleine Gallop recently graduated from Middlebury College where she studied Arabic and Geography and minored in Computer Science. She previously studied abroad in Amman, Jordan, and is so excited to explore Meknes. She loves running, canoeing, and maps. After CASA, she plans to pursue graduate school and a career as a cartographer and journalist.
Caroline Giles graduated from the College of Wooster with a double major in Anthropology and French & Francophone Studies. She was awarded a Critical Language Scholarship in Amman, Jordan and spent a year in Rabat, Morocco where she conducted independent research on the anthropological intersection of language and identity construction, worked with the MACECE/Fulbright Morocco, and coordinated summer study abroad programs for American students. After CASA, Caroline looks forward to pursuing MAs in Middle East Studies and Linguistics before entering a career in linguistic and cultural heritage preservation.
Gideon Gordon recently graduated with a Bachelor’s from Boston University, majoring in International Relations and Middle East and North Africa Studies. His research interests include the internal politics of rebel groups and armed nationalist movements, civil war dynamics, and authoritarian politics. After graduating from CASA, he hopes to put his Arabic to good use in either government service or academia.
Colby Kelly is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, completing a semester abroad in Jordan during his senior year. Colby worked as a Civil Affairs Officer during his time in the Army, focusing on stabilization and civil outreach in the Middle East alongside the U.S. Department of State and USAID. He is interested in working in international development and one day teaching Arabic as a foreign language.
Baya Laimeche recently graduated from the University of Arizona with a bachelor’s in political science with a concentration in international relations, Middle Eastern North African studies, and Arabic. After CASA, she plans to enroll in a MENAS graduate studies program.
Katherine M Wilmore graduated from Middlebury College with a joint degree in Arabic and Geography. Interested in migration studies and working with Arabic-speaking migrants, she has interned with the Social Services for the Arab Community in Toledo, Ohio and the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center in Rome.
Xenia Makosky recently graduated from Dickinson College with a B.A. in art history and Middle East Studies. During her time at Dickinson, she was a curatorial intern within the Islamic art collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, received the Critical Language Scholarship, and studied in Jordan, Morocco, and Oman. Xenia’s senior research concentrated on Palestinian women’s embroidery, and she hopes to pursue future studies in Islamic art.
Charlotte McClelland graduated from UC Berkeley in 2022 with dual degrees in Economics and Arabic. She has worked in Jordan, Costa Rica, and Spain. She hopes to combine her qualitative and quantitative skills to continue working on development economics research in the MENA region. She is excited to learn about and explore Morocco as a CASA fellow!
Aidan McGahey recently received a bachelor’s degree with honors from the College of the Holy Cross, where he double majored in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies. Aidan has previously studied Arabic in Morocco through the NSLI-Y program, and completed Arabic programs during college in Jordan and Oman. After CASA, he hopes to research politics and human rights in the MENA region.
Miles Mikofsky is a poet and translator. He's studied Arabic in Fes, Amman, and at the University of Chicago, where he received a BA in NELC and is now an MA student (with an interest in the relationship between poetry and politics). Miles enjoys the woods, running in the woods, ceramics, and speaking of himself in the third person. He recommends you read W.S. Merwin.
Yin Qin studied Middle Eastern Studies, Arabic, and Persian at the University of Arizona and he also attended a summer program in Amman, Jordan at the Qasid Institute as an Arabic Flagship member. His academic interests include Middle Eastern literature, language and history. He’s currently applying for a graduate program in similar fields.
Kathryn Selfe recently graduated from Colgate University with a double major in Anthropology and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. While at Colgate, she studied at the Middlebury Arabic Language school, spent a semester in Rabat, Morocco, and did a summer internship in Tunisia. She has academic interests in critical studies of international development and migration in North Africa.
CASA II Fellows 2025 in Jordan
Spring 2025
We have another talented group of Fellows for the 2025 year studying with our Qasid Institute faculty in Amman. You are welcome to review their bios below.
Calista Boyd is a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville studying Comparative Politics. Calista was a CASA I Fellow the previous year, and her research looks at the Jordanian party system and its involvement in popular social movements. She plans to pursue a career in federal service once she finishes graduate school.
Danielle Demers is a doctoral candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her research focuses on the gendered political economy of protracted conflict. Prior to pursuing a PhD, she spent more than seven years living in the Middle East, where she worked as a researcher supporting the Syria humanitarian response.
Samuel Dunham is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Yale University. His work investigates the colonial roots of state capacity in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2015, he received a BA in Government and Economics from the College of William & Mary. He was a CASA I Fellow for the 2022-2023 year and is thrilled to be returning to Jordan in the spring.
Mohammed Elfeky is a PhD student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University. He studies humor and satire in the modern Middle East and the sound cultures of contemporary Egypt.
Ameen Omar is a Ph.D. student in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University where he studies slavery and abolition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Persian/Arab Gulf. Although his focus in on the Gulf, Ameen’s purview overlaps into fields in Indian Ocean, Ottoman, and East African studies. Before joining Princeton, Ameen spent time in studying Arabic in Cairo, Turkish in Istanbul, and Islamic Studies in Doha. Ameen wrote a master’s thesis on the afterlives of formerly enslaved people in Qatar, using interviews, online fatwas, Arabic media, and museum exhibitions as sources of analysis.
Spenser Rapone is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Texas at
Austin where he studies modern Arab intellectual history. His research is primarily concerned
with the question of the self, soul, and spirit in modern Arab thought, particularly with regard to
various anticolonial nationalist formations and the intellectuals who comprised them.
CASA III Fellows 2025 in Morocco
Spring 2025
We have another talented group of Fellows for the 2025 year studying with our AALIM institute faculty in Meknes. You are welcome to review their bios below.
Claire Gilbert is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Saint Louis University. Her research focuses on the social history of translation and language contact in the Western Mediterranean. She is working on a book project about vernacular Arabic linguistics in Iberia and Morocco between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.