Rania Abouzeid  Keynote Speaker

Rania Abouzeid is an Australian‑Lebanese journalist, author and commentator who has reported across the Middle East for more than two decades. A contributor to The New Yorker, she has covered wars, revolutions, political upheaval and human rights for the world’s leading outlets—across print, television and books—and has earned top honors in each category.

Abouzeid is the author of three books on the Syrian war, including the widely acclaimed No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria, the young‑adult narrative Sisters of the War, and The Cave, the memoir of a Syrian civilian doctor (publication: March 2024). She has received fellowships from Harvard (Nieman), Columbia’s Dart Center, New America, the European Council on Foreign Relations—and a 2025 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship to pursue investigative reporting across the region .

Known for straight‑talking, solo reporting from dangerous frontlines, Abouzeid conducted the first face‑to‑face interviews with members of al‑Qaeda in Syria. She has worked undercover to expose sex trafficking in Iraq, travelled with an Afghan anti‑kidnapping police squad, reported from prisons in Karachi, and extensively covered Lebanon’s Hizballah. Her on‑the‑ground access combines with archive‑deep and policy‑aware storytelling to help global audiences understand the human stakes behind headlines.

Abouzeid produces timely analysis as well as storytelling. In 2025 she published a policy brief on Iraq’s post‑ISIS massacres through the European Council on Foreign Relations alongside her regular contribution of dispatches to The New Yorker and National Geographic. She is as adept moderating high‑level panels—including at the United Nations in conversation with former heads of state—as she is addressing students and citizen audiences at universities worldwide. A graduate of the University of Melbourne, she lives in Beirut.