Panelists

Lina Attalah – Publisher of Mada Masr
Lina Attalah is the co-founder and chief editor of Mada Masr, a Cairo-based news website. She has been a journalist for over a decade, covering primarily Egypt and the region, including the Syrian revolution and the Iran 2013  presidential elections. She was previously the chief editor of Egypt Independent, another Egyptian leading English-language news media.

Judith Barry – Artist, NYC
Professor | Director of the ACT program at MIT, Cambridge
Judith Barry’s research-based practice utilizes installation, architecture and design, film/video, performance, sculpture, photography, and new media. In 2000, Barry was awarded the Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts. Barry has exhibited internationally at such venues as Documenta, Berlin Biennale, Venice Biennale of Art/Architecture, Sao Paulo Biennale, the Carnegie International, and the Whitney Biennial. Currently, she is Professor and Director, ACT at MIT, Cambridge | www.judithbarrystudio.com | www.cairostories.com

Mona El-Naggar
The New York Times, Senior Producer, International Video
Mona El-Naggar is a senior producer for The New York Times, leading the international on-the-ground video coverage. She turned to filmmaking after more than a decade reporting in the Middle East and covering the growing discontent leading up to the Arab Spring. Her work explores issues of identity with a focus on youth, women and religious extremism. Mona was a Pulitzer finalist for a story tracing the transformation of a young man from a bodybuilder into an ISIS fighter. Her work with a team of reporters documenting the Rohingya massacres in Myanmar was nominated for an Emmy. She produced Ladies First, a documentary that goes inside the largely inaccessible world of Saudi women, and The Story of Esraa, which explores social change in Egypt through the intimate tale of one woman’s quest for independence. Mona studied political economy at Georgetown University and received a master’s degree in news and documentary from New York University. | Twitter: @monaelnaggar | Instagram: @elnaggarmona

Omnia Khalil – PhD student, Anthropology, CUNY, NYC
Co-founder of 10 Tooba| Applied Research on the Built Environment, Cairo
Omnia Khalil is PhD student, City University of New York (CUNY), anthropology program. She is co-founder of 10 Tooba| Applied Research on the Built Environment. Her current research titled “Urban Geographies of Violence in Post-Revolutionary Cairo” focuses on forms of violence in a local community of Bulaq Abulella in Egypt. She is an engaged scholar and urban anthropologist and has over ten years’ experience in social mapping and participatory community urban action planning. Omnia was heading a participatory community action plan in Ramlet Bulaq and was a post MA fellow in the anthropology department at AUC, where she finished her thesis in cultural anthropology. Her MA thesis is titled “The People of The City, Space, Laboring and Power; Unraveling the How in Ramlet Bulaq”. During her MA research, Omnia participated in a one-semester exchange program with Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India.