Diya Abdo
Lincoln Financial Professor, English and Creative Writing, Guilford College
Diya Abdo, PhD, is the Lincoln Financial Professor of English at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina. A second-generation Palestinian refugee born and raised in Jordan, Abdo’s teaching, research, and scholarship focuses on Arab women writers and Arab and Islamic feminisms. Her book American Refuge: True Stories of the Refugee Experience was selected as a North Carolina Reads 2024 Book. In 2015, Abdo founded Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR), which advocates for housing refugee families on college and university campus grounds and supporting them in their resettlement. The flagship chapter at Guilford College, now one of several ECAR campuses, has hosted nearly 90 refugees thus far. Abdo is the recipient of several awards, including the J.M. Kaplan Fund’s Innovation Prize (2021). She sits on the advisory board of the Community Sponsorship Hub.