Maytha Alhassen, PhD, primarily sees her labor as that of a freedom doula and an engaged wit/h/ness reviving the traditions of the feral femme. She is a historian, TV writer + producer, journalist, arts-based social justice organizer, and mending practitioner.

As a journalist, she worked as an on-air host for Al Jazeera English and The Young Turks, also field reporting for such outlets as CNN, Huffington Post, Mic, Boston Review, The Baffler, and CounterPunch. In 2017, Alhassen was awarded a TED residency that culminated in the TED talk “A Poem for Syria: Beyond a Geography of Violence” about her ancestral relationship to Syria and work with displaced communities in the region.

As a scholar, Alhassen holds a PhD in American studies and Ethnicity from University of Southern California, MA in Socio-cultural Anthropology from Columbia University, and a BA in Political Science and Arabic and Islamic studies from University of California, Los Angeles. Alhassen co-edited a volume on narratives from the 2011 Arab uprisings Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions (White Cloud Press, 2012) and authored the report Haqq and Hollywood: Illuminating 100 Years of Muslim Tropes and How to Transform Them (Pop Culture Collaborative, 2018) as a Pop Culture Collaborative Senior Fellow. She has also authored numerous academic articles. 

As a mender, Alhassen has facilitated healing workshops infused with art, trauma-informed yoga, mediation, and reiki to displaced people in Greece, Turkey, along the US-Mexico border, U.S. prisons, and in fugitive spaces. Alhassen has also co-founded multiple social justice organizations including Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, the Social Justice Institute at Occidental College, Believers Bail Out (a Muslim abolition group), and in the wake of George Floyd's brutal murder, the Arabs for Black Lives collective.

Currently, Alhassen produces and writes for Golden Globe and Peabody-winning Hulu series Ramy and serves as an Executive Producer for the upcoming docuseries American Muslims: A History Revealed. She is a Pop Culture Collaborative Pluralist Visionaries Fellow, advises on social impact campaigns, does educational and entertainment consulting, and offers healing workshops, all while trying to find time to write some books and show treatments.