About Me
I successfully defended my dissertation with the Department
of
Germanic
Studies at the University of Texas at Austin on May Day 2017.
I am proud to be a Longhorn and grateful to Katie Arens, PhD
my dissertation chair and my committee for the opportunity.
I am Professor of Government at Austin Community College
(ACC).
My research interests lie at the intersection of politics,
history,
economics, psychology, and philosophy. I am a firm believer in
a multidisciplinary
approach. Circa 1025 A.D. Ibn Sina
(Avicenna) said, "The knowledge of anything, since all things
have causes, is
not acquired or complete unless it is known by its
causes." It
is my belief that understand a the causes of a thing, many
approaches are necessary.
I have been a teacher since spring of 1995. I began teaching at the college level in spring of 2002. There is nothing else that I would rather be doing.
I regularly give public lectures and news interviews. Since summer 2006 I have averaged around one public speaking event per month.
I am ACC's Middle East Affairs expert and have been doing
television interviews since December 2008. As of late I
have had the honor of doing several live interviews on KVUE
(ABC) and Fox 7.
I am the founder and president of the Austin School, a
student club and lecture series.
From September 2010 until early 2012 I wrote regularly for Merhnameh,
a leading Tehran-based reformist socio-political monthly on US
and Arab politics and history. I produced approximately one
article every two to three months until the magazine was shut
down by the Islamic Republic. I have also written one
article for Hamshahri and another for Donya-e-Eqtesad
Daily newspaper.
In the US I have written a piece for the Austin American Statesman as well as three articles for TODO Austin, each about the Arab Spring.
I wrote the University of Maryland University College's WWII
classroom modules and I have edited two of Jason Mark's
books on WWII: Island of Fire and Besieged.
I am currently on the Faculty Evaluation Committee for the Department of Government at ACC.
I am 12/32 Egyptian, 6/32 Italian, 5/32 Finnish, 3/32 German, 3/32 Arab, and 3/32 Swedish. I have lived in both Germany and Egypt and speak German and Arabic. I have also lived in Lebanon, Algeria, and England and have traveled much of central and eastern Europe as well as some of the Middle East.
Personal interests include travel, backpacking, camping, gardening, and playing Advanced Squad Leader.