In Nairobi, Kenya for the 2012 Global Voices Citizen Media Summit
I’m currently teaching and researching at Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago. In addition to my post in the Political Science & Public Administration department, I am the director of Roosevelt’s exciting, interdisciplinary International Studies Program. I earned my PhD in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2010. My book, Dissent and Revolution in a Digital Age: Social Media, Blogging and Activism in Egypt — focused on the use of digital media by Egyptian opposition movements. I spent a year and a half in Cairo, Egypt between 2006 and 2011 doing interviews with activists, journalists and students for that project. My academic work has been published in Middle East Policy, Arab Media & Society and Politique Etrangèr, and I’ve published op-eds with NPR.org, the Christian Science Monitor, the Daily News Egypt, the Philadelphia Citypaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer and more. I’m currently at work on a book-length project on social media and public diplomacy in the Middle East, as well as collaborating with Babak Rahimi on an edited volume on social media in Iran, which is under contract with SUNY press.
Outside of the classroom, you can probably catch me at a baseball game, writing op-eds, playing Texas Hold ‘Em, making stews, seeing a concert, riding my bike around town, or spending my spare money on food.