Spring Webinar Series Focuses on How to Support Refugee and (Im)migrant Students

Patrick Masoya came to Arizona more than 20 years ago as a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, he has proudly made Arizona his home. As an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Masoya is the embodiment of the American dream in action. He is a graduate of Western International University, holding a BS in Business, an MBA in Finance from Grand Canyon University and a MS in Taxation from the University of Colorado Denver. Having worked as a senior processor for a Scottsdale insurance company before serving as a revenue auditor for the Arizona Department of Insurance, Masoya is now a partner at a tax and accounting firm and a board member at the national small business association and president and CEO of Refugees and Immigrants Community of Empowerment. His community engagement and servant leadership have spanned his lifetime and fueled his philanthropic ventures.

Ramadan Mekkawi is a 4th-year PhD student at University of Arizona in the Teaching Learning and Sociocultural Studies program. His research focus is on the education of refugees and his area of study is language and identity. Ramadan’s dissertation topic focuses on how hegemonic school policy related to language impacts the formation of the identity of refugee youth and children. He is currently the education coordinator for refugee students at Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, and has more than 20 years of experience in K–12 teaching, school administration and social service work. Ramadan Mekkawi is originally from Sudan in Northeastern Africa.

Roozbeh Shirazi is an associate professor of Comparative and International Development Education at the University of Minnesota. Informed by his experiences as a former public school teacher, his work in Jordan, the U.S. and France focuses on secondary and postsecondary education as arenas of cultural production and political struggle, with an emphasis on youth and community-organized educational counterspaces. Across these sites, Shirazi’s research is guided by a commitment to interrupt — and imagine alternatives to — hegemonic and dehumanizing depictions of minoritized immigrant communities that animate contemporary migration and educational policies, curricular resources and pedagogical practices.

Pamela DeLargy serves as the executive director of Education for Humanity, professor of practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies and advisor to the president at Arizona State University. Previously, she served as senior advisor to the U.N. Special Representative for Migration from 2014–17, providing policy advice on matters of Mediterranean migration and EU responses. DeLargy was also a visiting fellow at The London School of Economics in 2016, conducting research on humanitarian response to mass migration. Prior to this, she was in the U.N. Population Fund for more than 20 years, including overseeing UNFPA’s humanitarian work, as well as serving in numerous posts in Africa and the Middle East. She is a public health and migration specialist with specific expertise in the Horn of Africa..