Biography

As a scholar of Lebanese origin, born and raised in the diaspora, I have always grappled with the historical processes underlying such displacement, with its multidimensional precarity at home and abroad. My family, like countless others, has suffered tremendously at the hands of a civil war that tore my country apart for 15 years, and left scars persisting into the present. Indeed, the past year and a half have seen the violent eruption of the structural contradictions emerging from this conflict and those which facilitated its emergence in the first place, leading to the contemporary collapse in Lebanon's economy and governance structures alongside the explosion of the Beirut port - the lifeline and microcosm of a country dependent on imported goods, incomes, and capital for its livelihood. Accordingly, I hope to devote myself to understanding the complex origins of these deep-rooted issues, that I may contribute to improving living conditions in my home country. I believe that a critical understanding of the past ought to illuminate genuine paths to reform in the coming time. In other words, Sisyphus' happiness is inseparable from the curse which condemned him to his boulder and the trickery which provoked the wrath of Zeus.

Previous Education

University of Cambridge Development Studies 2020
University of Toronto Economics & Philosophy 2019