Lela Ali is a proud immigrant from Egypt and a graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she received her Master’s in International Development Policy and Middle East Studies. Her research focuses on social network analyses of local Muslim, American-led networks in the south.
Lela is the Co-founder of Muslim Women For, a grassroots organization led by Muslim women that started as a storytelling space and now works to center and advocate for Black, Brown, immigrant, and indigenous Muslim women through raising political consciousness, local organizing and collective healing, creating spaces for leadership development for Black and Brown women, and building coalitions across communities and movements in North Carolina.
Lela is a vivacious community leader who brings rich experiences in community organizing and social justice advocacy, with expertise in voting rights, immigrant rights and justice, reproductive justice, and coalition building.
In all of her work, Lela aspires to use research and data in social justice advocacy and direct action in order to create policy spaces that recognize the most marginalized of our communities.