Mohamed is a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas, where he majored in Political Science and completed his senior thesis on statelessness and its practical implications on Palestinians living in the refugee camps of Lebanon. He also earned an M.A. in International Relations and an M.S. in International Political Economy from the University of Texas at Dallas. He has written articles about Palestine issues that have been featured on Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, and others. Prior to joining The Jerusalem Fund, Mohamed campaigned and worked for a Palestinian-American city councilman and mayoral candidate in the city of Richardson, Texas. Mohamed can be contacted by email at mmohamed@thejerusalemfund.org or by telephone at (202) 338-1958.

Samirah Alkassim, Program & Communications Manager

Samirah is a filmmaker and film scholar, with published articles about experimental and independent film/video in the Arab world. Her films include experimental documentary Far From You about Egyptian singer Umm Kulthoum, among various other experimental films and installations. Her publications include the introduction to the English translation of Syrian film director Mohammad Malas’s book, The Dream – A Diary of a Film (American University in Cairo Press, 2016), about whom she also co-authored a book, The Cinema of Muhammad Malas: Visions of a Syrian Auteur (Palgrave Macmillan Press, forthcoming 2018). This book is among the first in a series on Arab Cinemas for which she is a co-editor. She has taught film studies and production in Singapore (Ngee Ann Polytechnic), Egypt (American University in Cairo), the San Francisco Bay Area (U.C. Berkeley and Sonoma State University), and Virginia (George Mason University), where she currently teaches as an Adjunct Associate Professor. She has an M.F.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University and a B.A. in English Literature from Oberlin College.