Assal Rad, Sean Yom and Mira Al-Hussein Join DAWN as Non-Resident Fellows

(Washington, D.C., March 12, 2025) — Three regional experts have joined DAWN as its newest non-resident fellows: Middle East scholar and analyst Assal Rad, political scientist and professor Sean Yom, and Emirati sociologist and writer Mira Al-Hussein. They will further expand DAWN's expertise on Iran, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf region, as well as on issues related to U.S. foreign policy and authoritarian governance throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

They join a group of 18 other non-resident fellows at DAWN whose expertise complements and advances the organization's mission, research and advocacy to promote democracy and reform U.S. policy in the MENA region. Like all of DAWN's fellows, Rad, Yom and Al-Hussein will contribute to DAWN's online journal, Democracy in Exile, and offer insight, analysis and policy recommendations on behalf of DAWN. All three fellows are already contributors to Democracy in Exile. 

"We're honored to have three new scholars, each with unique expertise on a critical part of the MENA region—Assal Rad, Sean Yom and Mira Al-Hussein—join DAWN's growing and diverse non-resident fellows program," said Frederick Deknatel, executive editor of Democracy in Exile. "Readers of DAWN's journal are already familiar with their compelling voices and insights in analyzing and understanding the region."

"I'm thrilled that Sean Yom and Assal Rad are joining DAWN as new fellows," said Nader Hashemi, one of DAWN's first non-resident fellows and the director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. "They bring a wealth of intellectual talent rooted in the study of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, Western media bias and a principled critique of U.S. foreign policy. They add to an existing roster of expertise at DAWN that will help reshape the public debate on issues related to human rights in the Arab-Islamic world."

"Mira Al-Hussein's bold and original research on the contemporary politics of the Gulf amplifies the voices of political activists and other marginalized communities, dispelling any notion that the UAE and other Gulf monarchies are bastions of progress and reform," said Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN's executive director. "Mira will help advance DAWN's mission for democratic change in this crucial region."

Assal Rad is a scholar of Middle East history and political advocate based in California. She works on research and writing related to U.S. foreign policy issues, the Middle East, contemporary Iran and Israel-Palestine. Dr. Rad graduated with a PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. Her PhD research focused on modern Iran, with an emphasis on national identity formation and popular culture in post-revolutionary Iran. She is the author of The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect and more. She has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, CNN, Al Jazeera, NPR, and others. In 2021, Rad was selected for both the Middle East Policy Council's 40 Under 40 Awards and Out in National Security's Leaders List. Follow her on X/Twitter: @AssalRad.

Sean Yom is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University. He is a specialist on regimes and governance in the Middle East, especially in Arab monarchies like Jordan, Kuwait and Morocco. His research engages topics of authoritarian politics, democratic reforms, institutional stability and economic development in these countries, as well as their implications for U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of several books, including From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2016), the co-edited The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings (Oxford University Press, 2022), and the forthcoming Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible (Oxford University Press, 2025). His essays have appeared in academic journals like Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, and Journal of Democracy, as well as policy magazines like Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. Yom holds a PhD in Government from Harvard University and an AB in Political Science from Brown University.

Mira Al-Hussein is an Emirati sociologist specializing in the Arabian Peninsula. Her interdisciplinary research explores contemporary Gulf histories, state-society dynamics in the region, and women's agency. Currently, her work examines the migration of Gulf citizens and their diasporic activism. She holds a PhD in the Sociology of Education from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in International Relations from the University of Bristol. She is also the founder and organizer of a budding webinar series, Ta'shirat Dukhool, which hosts young academics and social activists from the Gulf region to discuss topics relevant to the "Gulf street."

DAWN's non-resident fellows are available for interviews with the media. For inquiries based on each Fellow's area of expertise, please contact press@dawnmena.org.

DAWN, founded in 2018 by Jamal Khashoggi, is a nonprofit organization that promotes democracy, the rule of law and human rights for all the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa and advocates for U.S. policies that align with these goals.