Chair 

Dr. Noor Ali is Associate Teaching Professor and Concentration Lead for Ed.D. Transformative School Leadership at Northeastern University's Graduate School of Education. She is the founding chair of the American Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group on Critical Muslim Education Research and serves as a commissioner for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Dr. Ali developed the MusCrit (Muslim Critical Race Theory) framework, which extends critical race theory to center Muslim American educational experiences. She is the author of Critical Storytelling: Counter-Narratives of Female Muslim American Youth (Brill, 2022) and Creating Inclusive Classrooms for Muslim Students: A Practical Guide for Teachers (Routledge, 2025). Dr. Ali also served as principal of Al-Hamra Academy, an Islamic K-12 school in Massachusetts, embodying her commitment to scholar-practitioner-activist work, and is the strategic lead for the high school there. 

Co-Chair

Amaarah DeCuir, EdD, is a Senior Professorial Lecturer at American University in the School of Education and an Executive Board member with the Center for Islam in the Contemporary World.  Recently, Dr. DeCuir served as an Advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, supporting the Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  Her scholarship spans the areas of higher education pedagogies, Muslim student experiences, Prophetic pedagogy, faith erasure, equity and social justice, education leadership, teacher education, and faculty development.  DeCuir is Co-Chair of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division A Leadership in Action Committee and founding Vice Chair of the Critical Muslim Education Research SIG.   She has published peer-reviewed articles and chapters, co-edited a book in the Routledge series, Educational Leadership for an Equitable, Resilient and Sustainable Future, and co-authored  Faith Honoring:  Making the case for faith-inclusive pedagogy  with Academic Studies Press.  A highly regarded educator and facilitator, Dr. DeCuir brings over 30 years of teaching and leadership experiences from public and private K-12 schools to inform her current work in higher education.

Dr. Fatıma Şeyma Kızıl is a Ph.D. graduate in Literacy Education from Syracuse University and currently serves as a National Specialist at the Ministry of National Education in Türkiye. Her dissertation, passed with distinction and nominated for the Distinguished Dissertation Award, examined Muslim American adolescents’ literacy practices in an out-of-school book club program. Her research focuses on Muslim youth literacy, culturally sustaining pedagogies, digital literacy, identity development, and justice-oriented education. Dr. Kızıl has taught and co-taught undergraduate and graduate literacy courses. She has presented at AERA and LRA and published in Journal of Education in Muslim Societies, The ALAN Review, and The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. She is Co-Founder and Treasurer of the AERA Critical Muslim Education Research (CMER) SIG and has served as an Editorial Assistant for the Journal of Literacy Research. She can be reached at fseymahosgor@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatima-seyma-kizil

Communicatıon Co-Chairs

Dr. Marwa Al Khamees is an educator and scholar whose work focuses on belonging, equity, and identity among SWANA Muslim students in higher education. As Director of the SWANA Center at Sacramento State, she leads programs that foster community, empowerment, and student success through culturally responsive engagement. Marwa holds a Ph.D. in Education and Leadership from Pacific University, an M.Ed. from Oregon State University, and a B.S. in Management and Leadership and Human Resource Management from Portland State University. Her research, grounded in Critical Race Theory, examines how institutional contexts shape SWANA students’ experiences of belonging and self-expression.

Dr. Ibrahim Kizil is a recent Ph.D. graduate in Literacy Education from Syracuse University and currently works as a researcher at the Turkic World Foundation. His research focuses on digital literacy, technology integration in K–12 education, and reading motivation, with a particular emphasis on racial and equity-driven analyses using MusCrit and Quantitative Critical Theory (QuantCrit). He applies advanced quantitative methods, such as Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), to analyze large-scale assessment data, including PISA. His recent research investigates the factors influencing U.S. adolescents' digital reading achievement in the PISA dataset.
Email: ibrahimkizil2063@gmail.com ORCID: 0009-0005-9007-2175 

Engagement Co-Chairs 

Graduate Student Engagement Chair

Khadija Zogheib is a PhD student at Florida State University (FSU) with five years of experience in STEM research. She specializes in the FSU science education program, investigating science curricula and teaching methodologies. Among the topics of her research are equitable science education, translanguaging pedagogies, and supporting preservice teachers to develop humanizing instructional practices. She completed her masters in Child, Youth, and Family Studies with a specialization in STEM education at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Her research examines how linguistic diversity can enhance science learning, drawing on her background in STEM education and a passion for supporting multilingual learners. Her scholarship has focused on the influence of language on students' learning experiences.

Senior Scholar Engagement Chair: 

Melanie Brooks serves as Associate Dean (Research) in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. Her research examines how school leaders' faith and faith identity, particularly within Islamic contexts, shape educational structures, policies, and practices. She specialises in studying leadership in complex educational settings affected by ideological, geopolitical, and socioreligious dynamics. A former U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar to the Philippines, Melanie has conducted research across multiple countries including the United States, Australia, Egypt, Indonesia, and Thailand. She currently leads international research collaborations that examine the influence of religion and critical spirituality on educational leadership, policy, and day-to-day practices.

Events Co-Chairs 

Dr. Ambereen Khan-Baker, NBCT: Ambereen has thirteen years of classroom experience as an English and Special Education teacher. For the past eight years, Ambereen has served as a Senior Policy/Program Specialist at the National Education Association, supporting state affiliates with creating and implementing professional learning systems and supports. Ambereen Khan-Baker is a renewed National Board Certified Teacher and recently graduated as a doctoral student from American University. The title of her dissertation is "“We're An Ummah:” Disrupting Anti-Muslim Racism And Nurturing Muslim Educators Through Circles Of Collective Empowerment, Storytelling, And Healing." Follow Ambereen on BSKY @ambereenkb.bsky.social and LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/ambereen-khan-baker

Wesam Salem is an Assistant Professor in Elementary Education within the Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership at the University of Memphis. Her research centers on Mathematics teacher education, with a focus on equity and access. She has published articles on effective practices for preparing preservice teachers to teach mathematics, qualitative methods, and culturally relevant pedagogy. She moderates the AMTE Community Circle on Culturally Relevant Practices and serves on the AMTE Award Committee. Her recent publication, Ziyyarah: Ethical and Intra-Active Space for Conducting Interviews with Muslim American Students, introduces a framework for intra-active methodology in research with Muslim students in the U.S.