Re: Who are you?

Description: A blend of the Western and the Middle Eastern.

Question: Who are you?

Transcript: Dalia Mogahed. I’m from Washington from the Gallup Organization where I direct the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Question: Where are you from and how has that shaped you?

Transcript: I was born in Cairo, Egypt. I think that where I was born has helped me to straddle two cultures.  I am both western as well as Middle Eastern.  I can . . . I understand the points of view of two cultures.  And more importantly they co-exist in perfect harmony within me, which has really inspired me to be a bridge between these two cultures in today’s world.

Question: Who was your greatest influence when you were young?

Transcript: I would say my parents first and foremost were huge influences for me.  They taught me my core values, my ethics, my sense of responsibility, my sense of a need to help bring about social justice and never compromising ethics for expediency.  That’s really the gift my parents gave me.  Aside from that, I would say my peer group and then books.  I think there are some specific books that really helped shape who I am, one of them actually being the autobiography of Malcolm X which I read as a teenager.  And what that taught me was that a person can really evolve and grow from something very narrow to something very universal.  And that growth is possible only through introspection.

Question: What did you think you would be doing professionally when you were growing up?

Transcript: I thought that I would be working in hard sciences.  My undergraduate degree is in Chemical Engineering, and I thought that that was what I would be doing for the rest of my life.  And I always believed that I could apply science for the benefit of humanity.  So that was always my goal.  As my career evolved, I took that scientific rigor and brought it to the social sciences.  And I think it’s been a real asset to what I’m doing now.

Recorded on: 7/3/07