Zahra N. Jamal is Fellow and Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of American Muslims at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. She is also the Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow on International Women's Rights at the University of Chicago, Director of Strategy and Research of the Isma’ili Tariqah and Religious Education Board USA. She was previously on the faculty at Harvard, MIT, and Michigan State University (MSU), and was also the Program Director of Central Asia and International Development at MSU. Dr. Jamal serves as an ethnographic consultant to the U.S. Department of State, Aspen Institute, the Swiss Development Cooperation, the Aga Khan Development Network, and USAID for projects on conflict resolution, gender equity, human rights, and civic engagement among Muslim communities in North America, Europe, and Central Asia. Her most extensive field research is on Muslim American philanthropy and voluntarism, which has become a major million dollar effort spearheaded by the Aspen Institute and Muslim Advocates. She has published in academic venues and in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and I Speak for Myself. She received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and a double B.A. in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies and in Slavic Studies from Rice University.