Muslim Women Scholars on Change in our Communities

Shabana Mir

Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator, American Islamic College
Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology and General Education Coordinator at American Islamic College. She teaches Islamic Studies, Gender Studies, and Research Methods. She is the author of the award-winning book Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity, published by the University of North Carolina Press (2014). The book has received the Outstanding Book Award from the National Association for Ethnic Studies and the Critics’ Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association (2014).
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Juliane Hammer

Associate Professor, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Trained in the study of Islam, languages, and pre-modern as well as modern Muslim societies, my scholarly trajectory has taken me from research on Palestinian women and diaspora and return experiences through a decade of work on American Muslim communities intersecting with women, gender and sexuality in contemporary Muslim contexts. I see myself in both Islamic studies and American religions, and in conversation with women’s and gender studies, sexuality studies and critical race theory. I have combined ethnographic and textual analysis methods in diverse research contexts and engage in interdisciplinary, multi-method research that does not privilege texts over lived experiences or vice versa.
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Kayla Renée Wheeler

Assistant Professor of Area & Global Studies and Digital Studies, Grand Valley State University
I am an Assistant Professor of Area & Global Studies and Digital Studies at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI. I received my PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa in May 2017. I have an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa, an M.A. in Islam and the West from Queen Mary, University of London and an M.A. in Bioethics from Case Western Reserve University.
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Kecia Ali

Professor of Religion, Boston University
Kecia Ali (Ph.D., Religion, Duke University) teaches a range of classes on Islam. Her research focuses on Islamic law; women and gender; ethics; and biography. Her books include Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (2006, expanded ed. 2016), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam (2010), Imam Shafi‘i: Scholar and Saint (2011), and The Lives of Muhammad (2014), about modern Muslim and non-Muslim biographies of Islam’s prophet. She co-edited the revised edition of A Guide for Women in Religion, which provides guidance for careers in religious studies and theology (2014). Her research also includes gender, ethics, and popular culture.
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Sajida Jalalzai

Assistant Professor, Trinity University
Sajida Jalalzai joins the Religion Department as Assistant Professor after holding an equivalent position for two years at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. She has a Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University and a Master of Arts in Religious Studies from McGill University, and she received her Ph.D. in Religion from Columbia University. She specializes in North American Religions with a focus on Islam and is currently engaged in studying chaplaincy programs for Muslim students housed at Protestant seminaries. In addition to being a religious studies scholar, she is a musician with interests ranging from opera to digital music.
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Shehnaz Haqqani

Assistant Professor of Religion, Mercer University
My specialty is religion and gender, with a strong focus on Islam. Prior to joining the Mercer faculty, I was a Dissertation Diversity Fellow in Women’s and Gender Studies at Ithaca College in upstate New York.

Teaching at Ithaca College solidified my interest in teaching. I have many passions, and teaching surpasses them all. I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to make a career out of a passion.
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