International Education Policy; Education in Emergencies; Refugee Education; Conflict and Peacebuilding; Peace Education; Humanitarian Aid; Language Policy; Gender and Development; Education in the Middle East

Zeena Zakharia is Associate Professor and Director of the International Education Policy Program at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research examines education in contexts of conflict 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.

2024 Graduate School Mentor of the Year, University of Maryland

Selected Grants & Projects:

  • Forging an Anti-Colonial and Anti-Racist Agenda in Global Education. (UMD College of Education Support Program for Advancing Research)
  • Confronting White Supremacy and Racism in Global Education. (UMD Graduate School Faculty-Student Research Award)
  • Partnerships in Education in Emergencies: Project website, related resources, and brief explainer video here. (Dubai Cares Evidence for Education in Emergencies Research Grant)
  • The Business of Schooling in Conflict: A Mapping and Analysis of Private Participation in the Education of Syrian Refugees. (Education International Global Response Research Grant)
  • Rethinking the region: New approaches to 9-12 US curriculum on the Middle East & North Africa: Project website. (Social Science Research Council; British Council Our Shared Past Grant)