tess m. waggoner

Tess M. Waggoner is (a) human who researches, creates, and writes.

Tess received a joint B.A. (magna cum laude) in Religious Studies and Asian and Middle East Studies from Kenyon College in May 2013. Tess also minored in Philosophy, and was active in many student organizations, including the Middle East Student Association and the (revamped) Kenyon Observer. Her undergraduate thesis, “God, Catastrophe, Land and Memory: The Palestinian Nakba” was jointly awarded the Simpson Prize by the Religious Studies department in May 2013.

After Kenyon, Tess lived in central Turkey for five and a half years. In the 2013-15 academic years, Tess was a Fulbright U.S. Student Program English Teaching Assistantship grantee in Kirikkale, Turkey; from 2016-2018 they studied in the M.Sc. Program in Social Anthropology in the Sociology Department at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Tess also provided administrative support to the American Programs Unit of the Turkish Fulbright Commission from 2015-2018.

The proud granddaughter of the late Maryse and Ramzy Mikhail, they serve on the steering committee for their Memorial Lecture Series at the University of Toledo, and maintain the Lecture Series’ web and social media presence.

Tess is a member of the Middle East Studies Association, and has held memberships in AAI’s National Policy Council as well as the American Anthropological Association, the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), the Network of Arab American Professionals (NAAP), and the Fulbright Association, among others.

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