Meet the Berkeley professors shaping global conversations on the Middle East and South Asia
UC Berkeley is renowned for its academic rigor across departments and disciplines. For professors Elora Shehabuddin and Ussama Makdisi, it is also what made them decide to make Berkeley their home.
As a married couple and renowned scholars, Shehabuddin and Makdisi have built careers centered on teaching, research and public engagement. Shehabuddin serves as director of Global Studies and the Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies, and professor of Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS), while Makdisi leads the program in Palestinian and Arab Studies and is a professor of history at Berkeley. Together, they are helping students better understand some of the world’s most debated and misunderstood regions, including South Asia and the Middle East.
At Berkeley, their work has included expanding programming in Bangladesh studies; helping establish the Palestinian and Arab Studies program; creating new opportunities for students to engage with global issues through scholarship and public dialogue and defending academic freedom.
Now, both are stepping into major international leadership roles. Shehabuddin was recently elected president of the Association for Asian Studies, while Makdisi was elected president of the Middle East Studies Association.
Berkeley Social Sciences recently spoke with Shehabuddin and Makdisi about how they met, their contributions to campus and what they hope to accomplish in their new leadership roles.
Please share with us how you two met.
Shehabuddin and Makdisi: We met as graduate students at Princeton University. Ussama was working on his PhD in history and Elora was working on her PhD in politics. We were introduced by a mutual friend at The Annex, one of the few restaurants in Princeton at the time.
Why did you decide as a couple to join UC Berkeley?
Shehabuddin: We had received several offers over the years to move together, but were very happy at Rice University in Houston, where we raised our children and built a strong community. I spent 21 years at Rice. I was drawn to UC Berkeley for its reputation, scale, faculty, students, and weather, as well as the opportunity to join GWS and the Global Studies program. Berkeley also hosts the only university center in North America — and perhaps outside Bangladesh — dedicated to Bangladesh studies. Given my research and teaching interests, it felt like the right move at the right time.
Makdisi: I was attracted to Berkeley because of its reputation and its location. I also have family in the Bay Area and California. Having spent 25 excellent years at Rice University, I felt it was time to move. Berkeley as a public institution and with a reputation for free speech and academic rigor was a compelling choice. (In the end, as in so many other things in our life, Elora ultimately decided!)
During your time at Cal, what would each of you consider to be your biggest contributions?
Shehabuddin: I became director of the Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies just a year after arriving at Berkeley, inheriting responsibility for maintaining its visibility and reputation, built under my predecessor Sanchita Saxena. Over the past three years, I’ve worked with colleagues at the Institute for South Asia Studies to develop programming on new work in Bangladesh studies.
The center has enabled collaboration with scholars and practitioners worldwide across career stages and across disciplines — from the humanities and social sciences to architecture, urban planning, and public health. Through my roles as Faculty Equity Advisor for GWS, director of the Chowdhury Center, and the Global Studies program, I’ve connected with colleagues across campus and gained a deeper understanding of the university.
Makdisi: It has been about expanding representation for a history, people and region that have long been misrepresented. I developed a new course(link is external) on Palestine and Palestinians, along with courses on the broader Middle East, in response to student demand. Berkeley continues to need more perspectives from across the world. I am proud of students of all faiths and backgrounds who have spoken out against injustice in Gaza despite extraordinarily unfair criticism. I am also proud to have helped establish the endowed Palestinian and Arab Studies Program and the May Ziadeh Chair in Palestinian and Arab Studies.
Elora, what do you hope to accomplish in your newly elected role as president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS)?
Shehabuddin: I’ve been a member of AAS since graduate school and have benefited greatly from it. As president, and in the subsequent past president roles, I hope to increase the visibility of South Asia within AAS priorities and conference programming, with special attention to smaller and under-resourced countries in the region. I also aim to support initiatives such as the AAS project funded by the Swedish International Development Agency and the AAS-in-Asia conferences, and to build on efforts like the Global Asias Initiative(link is external) to expand geographic reach and foster more inclusive, interdisciplinary exchange.
Ussama, what do you hope to accomplish in your newly elected role as president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA)?
Makdisi: It is hard to overstate the importance of a scholarly association like MESA, which is dedicated to advancing understanding of the Middle East while defending academic freedom and freedom of expression. At a time when many have chosen silence, MESA has remained present. The pressures on our community are significant, and MESA is a scholarly organization that understands that any exception to academic freedom, and especially around Palestine, inevitably compromises academic freedom more generally. Many members also engage in public scholarship to explain the region and the threats to the freedom needed to study it. The two tasks are intimately tied together. We can’t do our scholarly work with integrity unless we have the freedom to work, to study, and to think. Academic freedom is needed most when it is most under threat. That is now.