GU-Q welcomes new faculty members

Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) has announced the appointment of seven scholars to its faculty, effective August 1, a statement said.

These educators have expertise in areas such as environmental sustainability, American studies, Middle Eastern studies, international relations, and linguistic and cultural studies, dean Safwan Masri said.

Dr Sarah Gualtieri, Dr Youssef Haddad, Dr Paul Musgrave, Dr Ayman Shabana, Dr Waleed Ziad, Dr Rowan Ellis and Dr Nadya Sbaiti are the new faculty members.

Dr Gualtieri joins GU-Q as professor of History and American Studies from the University of Southern California. Dr Gualtieri's research spans Middle East migration studies, Arab American studies, and critical ethnic studies. She has received numerous national fellowships.

Dr Haddad joins as professor of Arabic and Linguistics from the University of Florida. In his research, he examines phrase and sentence structure of human language and investigates the social conditions of language use.

Dr Musgrave is an associate professor of government, transitioning from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests include US foreign and security policy, international relations theory, and public opinion and foreign policy. He has been published in top journals and has held prestigious fellowships.

Dr Shabana becomes associate professor of theology after 11 years as an associate research professor at GU-Q. His expertise includes Islamic legal history, ethics, and bioethics. He directs the Islamic Bioethics Project, supported by Qatar National Research Fund grants, and authored Custom in Islamic Law and Legal Theory.

Dr Ziad joins as associate professor of history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the intersection of social history, religion, and anthropology, his research spans the Persianate World from late antiquity to the present, focusing on Sufi networks and female leadership, and numismatics and material culture of the Indo-Iranian borderlands.

Dr Ellis joins as an assistant teaching professor of science. Formerly a senior research scientist and director of the Hydronation Scholars PhD Programme at The James Hutton Institute in Scotland, Dr Ellis brings extensive field research experience in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Northern Europe.

Dr Sbaiti becomes an assistant teaching professor of history, having been a visiting assistant professor at GU-Q since 2021. She specialises in the social and cultural histories of the Middle East, with research foci including education, gender, colonialism, nationalism, and the histories of tourism. She has taught courses on modern Middle East history; women and gender; histories of education; and science fiction as method.