Mariam Habib Matta

Mariam Habib Matta is a PhD candidate in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge, supported by the Nicholson Fund-Wolfson College Studentship. Her doctoral research focuses on the emerging phenomena she labels ‘Islamic Zionism’. Using ethnography as her qualitative approach, she will be investigating the theology, lived experience, and ideology of ‘Muslim Zionists’. She holds an MPhil specialising in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Cambridge, as a FAMES-Browne Cambridge Trust Scholar with her dissertation focusing on the Coptic indigenous identity. She graduated with a first-class BSc Hons Politics degree from the LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) as a Laidlaw Scholar. In her academic career Mariam has done extensive research on AI in Iran, Indigenous identities of the Middle East, antisemitism in the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Coptic identity, extremism, and political Islam.

Mariam has presented her research at the UCLA, Cambridge University’s Woolf Institute, VU Amserdam, BRISMES annual conference, and British Parliament amongst other conferences. She has also interned at the UN Refugee Agency’s Regional Bureau in Jordan, as a fieldwork intern at CEOSS in Egypt, and Christian Solidarity International amongst other NGOs. Additionally, she is the director of a Coptic youth non-profit Eremhi, an initiative to empower young Copts in the diaspora in capacity-building, politics, and the revival of the Coptic language. Mariam is a Coptic Christian and outside of academic research enjoys travelling and reading.