Biography

I graduated with a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2009. Upon graduating, I worked in the Office of Technical Assistance Management at the IMF in Washington DC. I also worked on a UNHCR project on Mapping the Living Conditions of Refugees in Lebanon, before attending Yale University for a specialized Master’s degree in International and Development Economics. Following graduation in 2013, I returned to Lebanon and joined the World Bank country office as a Research Analyst in Human Development. In my three years at the World Bank, I worked on both operational and analytical projects related to the Syrian refugee situation in Lebanon. The former included projects in the fields of social protection and education aimed at mitigating the impact of the Syrian conflict on Lebanon. The latter include a multi-agency study of the "Economic and Social Impact Assessment of the Syrian Conflict on Lebanon” and the “Lebanon Systematic Country Diagnostic”. Between 2014 and 2016, I was also a part-time economics instructor at the Lebanese American University.
I am currently a second year PhD student, and my research focuses on explaining how the Lebanese government and its policies, and the international humanitarian regime govern and manage Syrian refugees and their vulnerable hosts. Another aspect of my research focuses on the type of interaction, and processes of ‘integration’ that have developed in urban settings in Lebanon, between Syrian refugees and their Lebanese hosts as a lived reality rather than an active government policy tied to permanent resettlement and citizenship. Particular focus of my research is on developing an appropriate framework that incorporates different actors in managing and experiencing the Syrian refugee situation in Lebanon, and explaining how they constantly shape and reshape each other.

Previous Education

Yale University
University of California Santa Cruz