Currently I'm interested in how religious groups change, and make change in the world. My research focuses on the evolving landscape of religious communities across the US, building capacity among faith and government organizations and leaders, and enabling greater impact through effective strategy, partnership, and evaluation.
I serve as the executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California (usc.edu/crcc), which was named a Pew Center of Excellence in 2002. CRCC is a creative, entrepreneurial environment where scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders interact to produce research and programs that bring new insight into the roles of religion in the public square.
Previously, I built tools that enabled religious groups as they prepare for and respond to disasters, building professional development courses geared toward enhancing government agencies' abilities to partner with religious groups, and convening public/private roundtables around these issues. Along with partners at USC CREATE (create.usc.edu) and the National Disaster Interfaiths Network (n-din.org), we designed a comprehensive package of materials including a publicly available course on religious literacy and competency in disasters and 16 tipsheets- all material available on FEMA iPads and the Emergency Management Institute's website (IS-505). This work builds on religious literacy and competency training Peter Gudaitis at NDIN and I developed to train emergency management personnel across California. Additionally, I serve as the faith sector liaison for the LA Emergency Preparedness Foundation and on their board of directors. LAEPF coordinates private sector disaster response with LA City's Emergency Operations Center. I regularly teach this material in the USC Safe Communities Institute public safety officials leadership certificate program.
I am also a founding member of the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, an initiative at CRCC that works to build the capacity of community development corporations connected to congregations in low to moderate income neighborhoods to transform their neighborhoods. Currently, we are engaged in a pilot program to provide consulting and organizational development services to faith-based community development corporations in South LA as a means of transforming the neighborhoods they serve.
Another cornerstone of my work has been to create and lead programs that provide leadership development, conflict communication, and network building. That interest lead to co-founding the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (usc.edu/amcli) in 2006. Since our first year of programming we have had five classes of our national fellowship, a unique nine-month program that enhances the ability of emerging Muslim leaders to engage in the issues impacting their lives and the lives of their communities. We adapted the curriculum and have scaled the program to building and networking leaders at the regional level. We have held seven regional programs across the United States. AMCLI now has a robust alumni network of nearly 300 American Muslim leaders working on issues from heath policy to immigration reform, hunger to national security. The El-Hibri Foundation awarded me the inaugural Fearless Ally award at their 2016 Peace Awards ceremony in recognition of this work to foster greater inclusion of Muslims in American society.
AMCLI was a model for a U.S. Department of State initiative called "Generation Change" that took the concept global under the leadership of an AMCLI I alum. The GC program is now housed within the United States Institute of Peace and operated in partnership with CRCC. We jointly train youth leaders in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Colombia. I have designed and facilitated Generation Change programs for young adult participants from more than 20 countries. I've also trained United States Institute of Peace staff in Washington, D.C., and co-lead a USIP facilitator training program for Palestinian NGO leaders in Ramallah and co-trained a youth and thought leader delegation in an exchange with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2017.
I serve on several community and non-profit boards that work at the intersection of religion, pluralism, and the public square including- NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change (mjnewground.org), Religion Dispatches (religiondispatches.org), LA Voice (lavoicepico.org) The Guibord Center: Religion Inside Out (theguibordcenter.org), and Jewish World Watch (jewishworldwatch.org), where I chaired the Solar Cooker Project that brought solar cookers to Darfuri Refugees living in northern Chadian refugee camps.
In 2014, I became a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org) and have been a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (pacificcouncil.org) since 2008. In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed me to a two year term as a member of his interfaith collaborative advisory body. I am a 2016 Truman National Security Project fellow, a 2017 German Marshall Fund Memorial Marshall Fellow, World Economic Forum 2017 Young Global Leader (www.weforum.org/communities/young-global-leaders), and USC Safe Communities Institute fellow (http://priceschool.usc.edu/programs/sci/homegrown-violent-extremism-studies-program/).
My educational background includes a BA in Religion and in History from USC, an MA in Judaic Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, studying Hebrew at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and completing an executive program in Counter-Terrorism at USC's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (USC-CREATE).
I serve as the executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California (usc.edu/crcc), which was named a Pew Center of Excellence in 2002. CRCC is a creative, entrepreneurial environment where scholars, practitioners, and thought leaders interact to produce research and programs that bring new insight into the roles of religion in the public square.
Previously, I built tools that enabled religious groups as they prepare for and respond to disasters, building professional development courses geared toward enhancing government agencies' abilities to partner with religious groups, and convening public/private roundtables around these issues. Along with partners at USC CREATE (create.usc.edu) and the National Disaster Interfaiths Network (n-din.org), we designed a comprehensive package of materials including a publicly available course on religious literacy and competency in disasters and 16 tipsheets- all material available on FEMA iPads and the Emergency Management Institute's website (IS-505). This work builds on religious literacy and competency training Peter Gudaitis at NDIN and I developed to train emergency management personnel across California. Additionally, I serve as the faith sector liaison for the LA Emergency Preparedness Foundation and on their board of directors. LAEPF coordinates private sector disaster response with LA City's Emergency Operations Center. I regularly teach this material in the USC Safe Communities Institute public safety officials leadership certificate program.
I am also a founding member of the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, an initiative at CRCC that works to build the capacity of community development corporations connected to congregations in low to moderate income neighborhoods to transform their neighborhoods. Currently, we are engaged in a pilot program to provide consulting and organizational development services to faith-based community development corporations in South LA as a means of transforming the neighborhoods they serve.
Another cornerstone of my work has been to create and lead programs that provide leadership development, conflict communication, and network building. That interest lead to co-founding the American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (usc.edu/amcli) in 2006. Since our first year of programming we have had five classes of our national fellowship, a unique nine-month program that enhances the ability of emerging Muslim leaders to engage in the issues impacting their lives and the lives of their communities. We adapted the curriculum and have scaled the program to building and networking leaders at the regional level. We have held seven regional programs across the United States. AMCLI now has a robust alumni network of nearly 300 American Muslim leaders working on issues from heath policy to immigration reform, hunger to national security. The El-Hibri Foundation awarded me the inaugural Fearless Ally award at their 2016 Peace Awards ceremony in recognition of this work to foster greater inclusion of Muslims in American society.
AMCLI was a model for a U.S. Department of State initiative called "Generation Change" that took the concept global under the leadership of an AMCLI I alum. The GC program is now housed within the United States Institute of Peace and operated in partnership with CRCC. We jointly train youth leaders in the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Colombia. I have designed and facilitated Generation Change programs for young adult participants from more than 20 countries. I've also trained United States Institute of Peace staff in Washington, D.C., and co-lead a USIP facilitator training program for Palestinian NGO leaders in Ramallah and co-trained a youth and thought leader delegation in an exchange with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2017.
I serve on several community and non-profit boards that work at the intersection of religion, pluralism, and the public square including- NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change (mjnewground.org), Religion Dispatches (religiondispatches.org), LA Voice (lavoicepico.org) The Guibord Center: Religion Inside Out (theguibordcenter.org), and Jewish World Watch (jewishworldwatch.org), where I chaired the Solar Cooker Project that brought solar cookers to Darfuri Refugees living in northern Chadian refugee camps.
In 2014, I became a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org) and have been a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (pacificcouncil.org) since 2008. In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed me to a two year term as a member of his interfaith collaborative advisory body. I am a 2016 Truman National Security Project fellow, a 2017 German Marshall Fund Memorial Marshall Fellow, World Economic Forum 2017 Young Global Leader (www.weforum.org/communities/young-global-leaders), and USC Safe Communities Institute fellow (http://priceschool.usc.edu/programs/sci/homegrown-violent-extremism-studies-program/).
My educational background includes a BA in Religion and in History from USC, an MA in Judaic Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, studying Hebrew at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and completing an executive program in Counter-Terrorism at USC's National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (USC-CREATE).
