Prof. Nahla Abdo
Nahla Abdo is a Palestinian Canadian scholar, an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist feminist activist and Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology at Carleton University. In 2025, she received the National Medal of Excellence for Feminist Scholarship in Canada.
Professor Abdo has published extensively on racialized capitalism, settler colonialism and genocide, focusing on Palestine and Turtle Island. Her recent publications include An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba, co-edited with Nur Masalha (Arabic edition, Al-Aedoun Publishers, Amman, 2025); “Israel’s Settler Colonialism and the Genocide in Gaza” in Studies in Political Economy (2024); and “The Palestine Exception, Racialization and Invisibilization: From Palestine to Turtle Island” in Critical Sociology (2023).
In addition to numerous articles, her books include An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba (co-edited, 2018); Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle (2014; French translation 2019); Women in Israel: Race, Gender and Citizenship (2011); and Violence in the Name of Honour: Theoretical and Political Challenges (co-edited, Bilgi University Press, Istanbul, 2004), which has been translated into Kurdish and Turkish. She also co-edited Women and the Politics of Military Confrontation: Palestinian and Israeli Gendered Narratives of Dislocation (2004).
She served on the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Rana Abdulla, CPA
Palestinian Canadian Community Leader · Chartered Professional Accountant · Human Rights Award Recipient · Entrepreneur · Palestinian Heritage Collector and Exhibition Curator
Rana Abdulla is a Palestinian Canadian community leader, Chartered Professional Accountant, entrepreneur and human rights defender based in Winnipeg. Born in Kuwait, she received the 2014 Manitoba Human Rights Award for her work in refugee sponsorship, human rights advocacy and community leadership. Since 2009, she has worked to secure recognition of the Nakba at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, mobilizing Nakba survivors and bringing forward historical research and personal testimonies. As a member of the Palestinian Content Advisory Network, she played a leading role in the efforts that led to Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present, which opened in June 2026. Her grandparents’ house keys, kept until her grandfather’s last day in the belief that he would return home, and a bridal dress from Deir al-Balah that her mother rescued from disappearing, now stand in the exhibition as witnesses to the Nakba.
Rana is the founder of Yafa Café in Winnipeg and of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba (CPAM). She has curated Palestinian cultural exhibitions, including The Land Remembers, Palestine Resilience, Resistance, a two-month exhibition at Canadian Mennonite University in 2026 that returns in 2027, and the Palestinian Resilience section of the Canadian Muslim Heritage Exhibit, an upcoming two-year exhibition at the Manitoba Museum.
Her work focuses on preserving Palestinian history, cultural heritage and community memory for future generations.
Dr. Diana Abouali
Diana Abouali is the director of the Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Dearborn, Michigan. She joined the museum in 2019 and has since led its institutional transformation by enhancing digital capabilities, updating exhibitions, expanding research and outreach initiatives, growing the museum’s artist-in-residence program and strengthening ties to the Arab American community.
Diana’s career spans higher education, museums and the cultural heritage sector in the United States, Palestine and Jordan. Before joining AANM, she was an assistant professor teaching Middle Eastern studies at Dartmouth College, head of research and collections at the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Palestine, and director of education, outreach and awareness at the Petra National Trust in Amman, Jordan.
She serves on several boards and committees, including the Citizens Advisory Committee at the University of Michigan-Dearborn; the ambassadors council of the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs at Wellesley College, her alma mater; and the Board of Governors of the Japanese American National Museum. Diana is Palestinian, was born in Toronto and grew up in Kuwait. She received her PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 2004. She served on the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Prof. Yasmeen Abu-Laban
Yasmeen Abu-Laban is Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights at the University of Alberta, and a Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Her published research addresses themes relating to multiculturalism and anti-racism; migration policies and politics; surveillance, artificial intelligence and border control; and human rights. She served on the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights between 2022 and 2026.
Prof. Abigail B. Bakan
Abigail B. Bakan is Professor in the Department of Social Justice Education (SJE) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, cross-appointed to the Department of Political Science, and an affiliate of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. Her research is in the area of anti-oppression politics, with a focus on intersections of gender, race, class, political economy and citizenship.
With Yasmeen Abu-Laban, she is author of Israel, Palestine and the Politics of Race: Exploring Identity and Power in a Global Context. Her other publications include Ideology and Class Conflict in Jamaica: The Politics of Rebellion and Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxism and Critical Race Theories (co-edited with Enakshi Dua). She served on the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights from 2022 to 2026.
Najat El-Taji El-Khairy, Artist
Najat El-Taji El-Khairy is a Palestinian Canadian artist, researcher and advocate for Palestinian art and heritage, based in Montreal. Born in Egypt in 1948 after her family was displaced from Ramla during the Nakba, she attended a French school in Cairo, earned a BA in English Literature from King Saud University in Riyadh, and moved to Canada in 1988.
In 2003, drawing on four decades of artistic experience, she combined traditional Palestinian embroidery and porcelain painting to create an avant-garde art form: Palestinian tatreez on porcelain tiles, using hand-painted cross-stitch motifs and patterns. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the United Nations in New York. In 2018, she curated Palestinian Heritage… Worth Celebrating!, the first exhibition in Montreal to feature Palestine in its title. She also served on the Palestinian Content Advisory Network for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights exhibition Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.
Her motto: “Painting her way home, one stitch at a time.”
Draft for review by the honourees. Biographies are based on material provided by each honouree.