Research interests: Writing and Poetry. Socio-political and gender dynamics. Development and post conflict resolutions. Migration, Displacement, and Humanitarian Emergencies. Social Impact. Nationalism and Identity Formation. Trauma and Violence Extremism. Peace building and social cohesion.

Shano graduated from the University of Kirkuk in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Following graduation, she decided to dedicate her career to humanitarian work and now has seven years of work experience at the United Nations Mission in the MENA region, specifically within the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Iraq, where she diligently served communities affected by ISIL across Iraq. Through her work with the UN, Shano was able to put her experiences as part of a family affected by conflict into context and advocate for solutions that consider both logic and humanity.

During her time with the IOM—UN Migration Agency, during and post-ISIL conflict, Shano played a crucial role in leading programs and projects under challenging circumstances, managing multiple complex projects, and leading their implementation nationwide. Her work with research teams from universities such as Georgetown and Yale on longitudinal studies helped fuel her ever-growing interest in the humanities field, in particular, evidence-based approaches to problems like those that affected her during her formative years.

While pursuing her master's degree, Shano worked with the World Bank's Middle East Team on racial discrimination in Syria and Iraq and with IOM's Global Data Institute in Germany on women's mobility in Afghanistan. Additionally, she pursued The Project Management Professional (PMP) Certificate at Cornell University to complement her commitment and excellence in the field.

In the course of her study at GU, she hopes to contribute positively to the capacity in the region to deal with the aftermath of the many wars and to contribute to a transformation to peace, inclusions, and stability. She hopes to be able to engage individuals as part of the solution, move away from the victim-perpetrator dyad and find ways to engage all genders and ethnicities in seeing past the circumstances that society imposes on them.