Zeena Zakharia

Zeena Zakharia is Assistant Professor and Director of the International Education Policy Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research examines the interplay of language, conflict, and peacebuilding in education and advances a critical approach to refugee studies in the Middle East. These interests stem from over two decades of educational research, teaching, and leadership in war-affected contexts. Her recent study (with F. Menashy and M. Shuayb) investigated partnership arrangements in the global educational response to the Syria refugee crisis. She is currently investigating how organizations and actors advance anticolonial and antiracist agendas in education in emergencies. She was a Tueni Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a Middle Eastern Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University. She works with international and governmental organizations and schools operating in conflict-affected contexts.