Heba Ghannam Adjunct Instructor CAS | ANTH | Anthropology
- Degrees
- Heba Ghannam is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Ҵý, where she has been pursuing her Ph.D. since 2019. As a Fulbright Fellow, she earned a Master's degree in Public Anthropology from Ҵý. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Cairo University.
- Favorite Spot on Campus
- Hamilton building garden
- Bio
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Heba Ghannam is a Ph.D. Candidate in Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Adjunct Faculty at Ҵý in Washington, DC, where she teaches in the Departments of Anthropology, Critical Race and Gender Studies, and the Global Inquiry Program at the School of International Service. With over a decade of interdisciplinary experience in teaching, research, advising, and program management, her work explores the intersections of feminism, digital platform economies, authoritarian governance, labor, and digital media studies.
Her ethnographic research investigates how women YouTubers in Egypt navigate neoliberal, patriarchal, and authoritarian systems through the digitalization and monetization of domestic and affective labor. Heba’s academic practice is grounded in feminist methodologies, trauma-informed pedagogy, and a commitment to critical, transnational scholarship.
She is the author of “Digital Pathways for Exiled Voices: Transnational Critical Research for an Authoritarian Setting” (2025), in Exiled Scholars in Western Academia: Refugees or Intellectuals? Reflections on the Paradox of Inclusion and Exclusion (Springer Nature).
Heba has collaborated with international organizations including UNICEF, Save the Children, and the League of Arab States on initiatives focused on youth empowerment, gender-based violence prevention, and digital communication strategy. She has been recognized with fellowships from the Fulbright Program and the University of Toronto’s Evasion Lab, and she is a recipient of the Open Society Foundations Research Grant and the College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Research Award at Ҵý. She also served as a board member of the Association of Middle Eastern Anthropologists and is a frequent presenter at international conferences.
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Teaching
Fall 2024
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AWST-115 Introduction to the Arab World
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AWST-115 Introduction to the Arab World
Spring 2025
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AWST-115 Introduction to the Arab World
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SISU-306 Adv Int'l Studies Research: Feminist Methods/Gender Rsrch