Dr. Zahra Nasiruddin Jamal is
Associate Director at Rice
University's Boniuk Institute for
Religious Tolerance, where she
oversees strategy, operations, and
outreach. She has served on the
faculty at Harvard, MIT, University of
Chicago, Michigan State University
(MSU), and Palmer Trinity. Dr. Jamal
founded and directed the Civil Islam
Initiative at University of Chicago
and the Central Asia and International
Development Initiative at MSU. She was
previously Associate Director of the
Center for the Study of American
Muslims at The Institute for Social
Policy and Understanding (ISPU), where
she is currently a Fellow. Dr. Jamal
has consulted for the UN, State
Department, Aga Khan Development
Network, Swiss Development
Cooperation, and Aspen Institute on
issues of philanthropy and civic
engagement, education, positive youth
development, migrant labor,
gender-equity, food security, and
refugee settlement in North America,
Europe, the Middle East, South Asia,
and Central Asia. She has published in
academic and popular venues, including
*I Speak for Myself*, a volume of
autobiographical accounts of 40
American Muslim women leaders, which
has been positively reviewed by Nobel
Prize Winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Her
Majesty Queen Noor, Deepak Chopra, and
others. Dr. Jamal received a Ph.D. in
Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern
Studies from Harvard, and double B.A.
in Slavic Studies and in Middle
Eastern and Islamic Studies from Rice.
She joined the Institute in 2015.