Rand El Zein is the Research Officer for the department, Artifacts Action Knowledge at the MPIWG.
As Research Officer, Rand acts as an intermediary between scholars and administration, fulfilling the role of representative for the director and core management team in day-to-day activities. Her responsibilities encompass devising and implementing standardized procedures across different functional teams to ensure smooth and effective operations within the department, and overseeing the annual budget.
Additionally, Rand plays a crucial role in providing guidance, planning, negotiation, and administration for international collaborative research initiatives. This involves coordinating partner group activities, arranging lecture series, and organizing exchanges for fellows, scholars and guests. Moreover, she supports working group leaders in securing external funding and communicating their latest scientific activities and advancements.
Before joining the MPIWG, Rand worked as the project coordinator for the two Leibniz programs, HISDEMAB and REMOBOKO, at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin from 2021 to 2022. She obtained her doctorate in Communication Studies from the University of Salzburg in Austria between 2017 and 2021. During her doctoral studies, she wrote a monograph titled Between Violence, Vulnerability, Resilience and Resistance: Arab Television News on the Experiences of Syrian Women during the Syrian Conflict (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2021). Prior to that, Rand earned her Master’s degree in Media Studies from the American University of Beirut from 2013 to 2015, where she also worked as a research assistant from 2016 to 2017.
