Ellie Harris is from New Palestine, Indiana. Before coming to Columbia, Ellie studied philosophy at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Ellie is particularly interested in Sufism and Islamic philosophy, especially in South Asia.
Herman Lim Bin Adam Lim is the recipient of the Aga Khan Fellowship for the Columbia/Aga Khan Dual MA Program in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures. He is particularly interested in the multiple expressions of Muslimness across the Indian Ocean, and the connections engendered between its littoral regions throughout time. He focuses primarily on Southeast Asia, stressing its importance as an integral (rather than peripheral) region in the wider conversation on the Muslim World.
Prior to this program, Herman received his MA in Asian Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, where he studied the construction of Muslim identity in Malaya and Singapore in the realm of film, literature, and ephemera in the twentieth century, under his advisor Dr. Barbara Watson Andaya. He intends to explore pre-modern and early modern expressions of Muslimness, especially in relation to Sufism and the occult sciences, during his time at Columbia and the Aga Khan University.
Margaret Sawyer graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in Spanish and International Affairs and a minor in Arabic. During her time at UNH, she interned for the Department of State, where she co-managed an interactive platform for the US Embassy in Libya’s External Office. In her undergraduate thesis, Margaret explored how the Spanish tourism industry frames the country’s Islamic heritage, focusing particularly on Andalusia. As an MA candidate for the Columbia/Aga Khan dual degree in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures, she seeks to understand how politics and religion shape cultural and heritage preservation in the Middle East.
Safi is from Weddington, NC and recently graduated from Davidson College. She spent many memorable hours with the Religious and Arab Studies departments, discussing pre-modern mysticism interacting with modern consciousness. Her undergraduate thesis thus utilized Ibn Arabi’s Futuhat al-Makiyya as a method of identifying the spiritual flattening in Osama bin Laden’s transcripts.
Safi has studied Arabic with Qasid, Middlebury, and HDS. Further, her travels to Morocco taught the art of not only calligraphy but also daarija and old medina bartering. Returning to Rabat with the Pulitzer Center, she reported on the story of youth’s mystic and social culture in a new lingual age. In the next couple years, Safi hopes to continue research on mystic thought in a modern political context as a FLAS fellow in the dual MA program.
Usman Khan is a Queer, Muslim, Pakistani-Canadian graduate from York University, Toronto. His undergraduate degree was a Specialized Honours BA in History where he focused on the intersection between the Middle East, religion, and gender and sexuality studies.
Motivated by his own experiences and observations of Queer Muslims and South Asian youth, Usman aspires to become a historical scholar, contributing to and expanding youth access to research in these areas. He combines rigorous research and theoretical background with his personal perspective as both an outsider and insider to the cultures he explores. With a northern Pakistani background and Canadian upbringing, Usman brings a unique skill set in languages such as English, Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi, while further intending to soon include Farsi.
Usman's focus is on the region between Kabul and Delhi, specifically examining how Islam influenced gender and sexual norms during the later Delhi Sultanate and early Mughal Empire from the 14th to the 17th centuries.
Jaehoon Jung is an incoming candidate for the MA in Islamic studies from the Republic of South Korea. Jaehoon is completing a BA from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) located in Seoul, in the department of Persian and Iranian studies, with a minor in Arabic. As a student who has been interested in Islamic Jurisprudence and its formation, Jaehoon’s primary interest is development of Islamic Jurisprudence, legal principles (Usul al-Fiqh), and contemporary Maqasid discourses, as well as the formative history of Shi'ite Islam.
Maria is from Delhi, India. She completed her BSc in Physics from Delhi University and her post-graduate studies in Islam from Jamia Hamdard, Delhi. Her thesis explains that Islamic daʿwah differs from proselytization, and can be understood as a dialogue on spirituality and the purpose of life. She studied Arabic at Qasid Institute in Jordan. Maria’s videos on social media have garnered millions of views. She was featured in a Discovery Channel documentary on Islam and interreligious relations.
At Columbia University, Maria is pursuing further graduate studies to understand the relevance of the Islamic faith and intellectual heritage to the present age. Her research interests include peace in Islam, intellectual challenges posed to Islam by modernity, political interpretation of Islam, and Islamic philosophy and modern science. She aims to explore eastern and Judaeo-Christian religious traditions, seeking opportunities for interfaith dialogue. Currently, Maria is translating Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s Muṭālaʿah-i Ḥadīth (Prophetic Wisdom) from Urdu into English.
Ella is an incoming MA candidate in Islamic Studies at Columbia University. She graduated the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with a dual degree in Middle East Studies and Political Science. Ella took extensive courses in Arabic language as part of her degree. Throughout her BA she researched the impact the separation wall has on the lives of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Over the past year and a half, Ella has been working at the U.N as the spokesperson of the Israeli Ambassador. Her areas of interest are conflicts in modern Middle East, with a focus on the impact Islam has on decision making of Arab and Muslim states in foreign policy, specifically when it comes to the state of Israel. Ella is 26, married to Zev, with whom she currently lives in NYC.
Chikako Hori is an MA candidate in Islamic Studies at Columbia University. She is a diplomat trainee from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan. Before coming to New York, she studied Arabic for 2 years in Cairo. She holds an MSc in Culture and Conflict Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she researched Muslims in Europe. She has also completed a BA in Law from Kyoto University.
Rizka Azelia graduated from the Islamic State University of Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Indonesia with a bachelor in Islamic Family Law. Her undergraduate thesis was about the customary Inheritance system in Lohayong, East Flores, Indonesia. In the future, she plans to conduct more research on marriage and Family in Indonesia.
Alsya Feydra is an MA candidate in Islamic Studies at Columbia University from Bogor, Indonesia. She received her Bachelor of Humanities in Arabic Studies from Universitas Indonesia last Fall; her thesis focuses on how various aspects of Islamic traditions interact and overlap in present-day popular culture. The representation and identity of Muslims in digital media, particularly those of Southeast Asian Muslims, is one of her main research interests. She’s also passionate about the multiculturalism of Islam in Indonesia, believing that Southeast Asian Muslims are not only exciting research objects but also deserve to be the ones conducting said research themselves. One of the main goals that she hopes to accomplish by pursuing graduate study at Columbia is to help fill in the existing gap in international academia of SEA Muslim women scholars. In her spare time, she likes to watch dramas with her family and do karaoke.