ATLANTA—Dr. Nagham El Karhili has embarked on a new role as Program Associate at Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) where she is tasked with supporting the Director of Programming on the development and implementation of priority GIFCT programming and leading the facilitation and tracking of programmatic budgets, timelines, and outputs. The role also encompasses event planning and management, multi-sector stakeholder engagement and working group coordination. Some of the tasks includes working with teams that are focused on critical themes related to countering terrorism and violent extremist online while preparing strategic work plans, including outlining objectives, goals, strategies, deliverables and timelines.
As a Presidential Fellow with the TCV Initiative, El Karhili examined best practices for Muslim NGOs. Her research focused on international political communication with particular attention to communications strategies countering violent extremist narratives.
“Being a part of the TCV team allowed me to have an immediate home at GSU during my PhD journey. I felt like I was a part of impactful, global, and hardworking team of researchers who were supportive and excited by the research.” Dr. Nagham El Karhili earned her Ph.D. in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Media and Society in 2021. She successfully defended her dissertation titled: “Identity Tetris: Transnational Muslim NGOs within Global Contexts.” This dissertation explores how Muslim NGOs negotiate the positioning of religious identity within the international, national, and local contexts.
El Karhili stated, “My work with TCV/research allowed me to first contribute to an EU grant to bring unlikely actors to the table and have difficult conversations about civil society responses/place in responding to Violent Extremism.” Spending the latter end of her PhD research directly analyzing ISIS propaganda through a DoD grant to better understand the content itself and, most importantly, the positioning of religious identity within the propaganda, El Karhili stated, “This work allowed me to have hands on experience working with various stakeholders, planning events, conducting sound research projects with global partners, and debriefing high stake players like government orgs and intergovernmental bodies.” This experience lends itself to the preparedness for this new role and sets El Karhili up for her future endeavors.