Maytha Alhassen, Ph.D. is a historian, journalist, social justice artist, and mending practitioner. Inspired by James Baldiwn declaration of himself a “public witness,” she sees her work in the world as an engaged wit/h/nessing (witness + withness). Dr. alhassen received her Ph.D. in American studies & Ethnicity from USC, training in the disciplines of history, anthropology, media studies, Middle East studies with an emphasis on race, class, gender, religion and social movements. As a journalist, alhassen appeared as a co-host on Al Jazeera English and The Young Turks and has written for CNN, Huffington Post, Boston Review, Mic, LA Review of Books. She co-edited a book on the 2011 uprisings “Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions” (2012) and authored the report “Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes and How to Transform Them” for a 2017-2018 Pop Culture Collaborative Senior Fellowship. In the social justice organizing realm, alhassen co-founded Occidental College’s Social Justice Institute, Believers Bail Out, Arabs for Black Lives collective and currently sits on the advisory board for Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative and Feminist Studies in Religion online’s editorial board.