Please give a background on yourself and your career.
I grew up in a small town in central California where I spent most my time dreaming of moving east. The reality of my first Boston winter was harsh, but I made it through despite my early (and misguided) insistence on flip-flops year round. I graduated from Wellesley in 2008 with a double major in History and Jewish Studies. Immediately following, I entered a Master’s program at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and focused on modern political Islam.
Though I was proud of my intellectual work, I left my grad program feeling disconnected from the world outside of academia and from the Middle East, in particular. So I left Boston for Brooklyn and spent some time working at a café, looking for positions that would allow me to work in the Middle East. After sending out what felt like a hundred cover letters and applications, fate intervened, I suppose, and out of the blue I received a call from my future boss who asked if I could meet him during his (not so lengthy) layover. That was that, and a month later I was on a plane headed to Afghanistan. I spent the next year working on a large-scale direct delivery winterization program that ran in Kabul City’s IDP camps and in three rural areas across the country. I struggled daily with the ethical challenges that inevitably come up when working in an active war zone; philosophical questions about how best to help are compounded by mundane worries over budget lines and security warnings. My time in Afghanistan was incalculably valuable to me and continues to inform my perspective today.
After leaving Afghanistan, I transitioned from humanitarian aid worker to law student at New York University where I focused my studies on Islamic law and Islamic finance practice. I graduated in 2014 and I am now back in Boston as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program. My current work explores the intersection of classical Islamic finance forms and Afghan socio-cultural norms, and argues that by employing Sharī’ah-compliant financial processes and products, development efforts in Afghanistan can achieve greater success in encouraging economic growth, stable sovereignty, and a cogent rule of law regime.
How has your career changed since you originally envisioned it at Wellesley? What other careers did you consider as a student?
My career could not be more different than I’d originally imagined it. I came to Wellesley totally sure that I would pursue my musical theater dreams, end up on Broadway, and have approximately 14 Tony awards to my name by this age. After moving on from that plan (it turns out I don’t have the most acting talent of all time ever), I let go of the idea that I needed to have a specific, concrete career trajectory. I knew which subjects interested me most – Middle East politics, Arabic language, Islamic religious studies – and I decided to let those interests lead and allow the career thing to evolve organically on its own. I should say, though, that even now as a licensed attorney, I’m still not entirely sure where my career will ultimately take me. I guess that ‘organic evolution’ thing is more of an ongoing process…
How has Wellesley contributed to your career?
On a personal level, I consider my time at Wellesley to be truly transformative. It was at Wellesley that I first began to see myself as a person who could contribute meaningfully to intellectual discourse in the classroom and I credit Wellesley with teaching me the skills to think critically, not only in an academic setting, but in my personal life as well.
As to my professional life, I don’t know that I can put into words how important Wellesley has been to my career’s development. I mean, were it not for the distribution requirements I honestly don’t know if I would have found myself in that first course on the history of the Middle East. That class was the first time I’d ever really been excited about an academic subject and it most certainly was the first time I’d ever wanted to do the assigned reading. It introduced me to a whole universe of study I might not have encountered otherwise, and a professional trajectory I never would have considered previously. Once I’d found my passion, Wellesley was highly encouraging of my international travel and provided various stipends from the College which allowed me to go out into the world I was studying. And of course, the Wellesley network has always been and continues to be the first place I go when I need career advice of any kind.
What is a typical work day or work week like for you?
There are so many reasons why I love my job as a Fellow at Harvard’s Islamic Legal Studies Program, not least of which is the fact that there is no typical day in my position – at least as far as my intellectual work goes. This fellowship is, in part, an opportunity to study and write as widely as possible on any subject that interests me at a given moment. My primary research (and the bulk of my time) is spent on concepts related to Islamic finance practice and its potential for positive application in Afghanistan, though I have total freedom to change it up from day to day. Last week I heard this fascinating interview on NPR’s On Point about corruption in the Vatican Bank, for example, and I haven’t been able get it out of my head. So I’m now developing a piece on the relationship between financial corruption and religious extremism, comparing Catholicism and Islam. I’m also pretty sure I’ve found every free coffee spot across Harvard’s campus, so a typical day includes at least one or two stops to take advantage.
What piece of advice would you offer students looking to get into your area of interest and expertise?
Go to the Middle East! Travel as far and as wide as you can. I honestly believe that one of the most important factors to the success of my research has been my time spent living abroad. From Israel to Egypt to Afghanistan, living in the countries I write about has been key to developing my own unique academic approach, which for me means using a combination of legal theory, historical-anthropological training and a very healthy dose of practical realism. Also, learn as many languages as well as you can – that helps a whole lot.
What do you wish you had known as a student?
This is tough because on the one hand there are a million things I’d tell myself if I could go back in time (worry less; eat more vegetables, less ice cream). One of the great joys of my Wellesley experience, though, was the way it unfolded piece by piece, each day bringing new challenges and new ideas. That’s not to say it was easy or always fun, but I think the organic experience of Wellesley – without the benefit of hindsight – was what really allowed me to grow into myself personally and professionally.
If you could come back and take one class at Wellesley what would it be?
Beats, Rhymes, and Life with Professor Jeffries, for sure.