Hometown: Geneva, Switzerland / Fairfax, Virginia

Research Interests: Cultural production and visual language in the Middle East, North Africa, and diaspora; cultural diplomacy and representations of Arab artists in U.S. and European cultural institutions.

Laila is an arts administrator, art producer, curator, and researcher based in Washington, D.C. She graduated from George Mason University's School of Integrative Studies in Fairfax, Virginia with a B.A. in Integrative Studies with a focus on arts, politics, and culture, and gender studies. She holds certificates from SPEOS Photographic Institute Paris in Photography and Harvard Business School Online in Business Fundamentals. Laila was a 2020/2021 graduate student fellow at Georgetown’s Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics and a 2019 and 2017 D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellow. Laila is currently the Director of Programs at the Qatar America Institute for Culture. As an independent art producer, curator and researcher, she has worked on major national museum and gallery exhibitions, most recently curating "More Than Your Eyes Can See: Contemporary Photography From the Arab World" (2022) at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. Her research on the history and contributions of Arab artists in Washington, D.C. will be published in a forthcoming edited book. Laila is a member of Museum Hue, Arts Administrators of Color and recently served on the Executive Committee of the Washington, D.C.-region chapter of ArtTable, Inc. and co-chaired "State of Art5/DC: A Conversation" at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in October 2019. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, AlHurra TV, The New York Times and D.C. Modern Luxury Magazine, among many others.