Muna Shami
Affiliation
American Institutes for Research
Title
Senior Research Analyst
Bio
Muna Shami is a Senior Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research, where she supports federally-funded initiatives that seek to improve the lives of infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities by bridging research, policy, and practice. In this role, she synthesizes research and evaluates federal and state programs across an array of practice areas in the field of education, including improving access to general education for students with disabilities, reviewing personnel preparation programs, and working with states to improve planning processes for professional development. Prior to joining AIR, Muna worked as a counselor providing extended day services to preschool-age children. She also served as a Research Assistant in the Early Childhood Self-Regulation, Motivation, and Language Research Lab and the Social and Emotional Child Development Research Lab at George Mason University. She holds masters degrees in Counseling and Developmental Psychology and earned her doctorate in Education Studies from American University in spring 2010 (Dissertation: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Possibility: Hip Hop and Spoken Word by Arab-Americans as Cultural Action for Freedom).
