I've studied Kurdish refugees for over 10 years and I'm finally going to Kurdistan.

As an undergraduate at Syracuse University, I studied abroad in Strasbourg, France. To better immerse myself in the community, I volunteered at a refugee welcome center.  Among the young people I tutored in English was Ibrahim. We shared a passion for reading classic British novels.  One day I got up the nerve to ask him how he ended up in France.

“I am a Kurd,” he said.

I didn’t understand. I had never heard of Kurds.

Ibrahim resolved to teach me more. He invited me to meet his mother and sister.  Together they had hid in the back of a long haul truck from Turkey.  Ibrahim’s father had disappeared in a Turkish prison.

After graduating from Syracuse University with degrees in newspaper journalism and international relations, I moved on the University of Texas in Austin to work on a Masters in journalism and a Masters in Middle Eastern studies. 

With dreams of becoming a foreign correspondent, I studied Arabic and continued research on Kurdish communities in Europe.  In the course of my graduate work I realized that I preferred doing research projects over the hurried, short analyses necessary for the daily news cycle. My Master thesis was on a Kurdish satellite TV station.  I visited the station based in Belgium twice and even appeared on a talk show.

In 2009 I earned my PhD in Communication from the University of Washington and broadened my research to focus more generally on transnational populations including immigrants in the U.S. and, more recently, Iranian journalists.

For the past six years I have been a journalism professor at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. I teach general reporting skills and remain passionate about teaching my students to engage with others form different cultures.

Furthermore, now I’m a wife and the mother of two boys, 6 and 8.

It’s cliché to say that motherhood changed me, but it did. I think more than ever about the world my children live in. I believe the world needs mothers to be more active in our communities.  Observing the open-mindedness and curiosity of children should be a call to action.

When I saw the call for applications for the delegation to Iraqi Kurdistan with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and Christian Peacemaker Team, I knew I had to apply. I’m not prone to hyperbole, but this is a fulfillment of a long-held dream. 

I am eager to witness life in Kurdistan and to write and speak about it to anyone who will listen. I invite you to please help me fund my two-week trip and please invite me into your communities to share what I've learned after my return in late May. The deadline to fundraise for my trip is April 1, 2016.

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Prefer to mail a check? Checks can be sent the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship - 17 Cricketown Road, Stony Point, NY 10980 - with my name in the subject line. When it arrives to PPF and is entered into the system, it will then show up on my public fundraising page so you can see it and so that it counts toward my overall goal.

Any money that is raised in excess of $4000 will go to other trip delegates. Thank you for supporting me and this delegation for peace!