Jihan Mohammed wins Best Graduate Paper Award

April 1, 2021

MSU Sociology PhD student Jihan Mohammed has been awarded the Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the Muslim Studies Student Research Showcase.

Her paper is entitled “Sectarian Views in Post-2003 Iraq: An Empirical Study on Arab Sunnis and Arab Shiites.”

She presented the paper April 1. 

Jihan's research areas are race and ethnicity, political sociology, social psychology. She is particularly interested in using qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate national and ethno-sectarian identities in the Middle East. Much of her research focuses on social distance and sectarian discrimination in Iraq and Lebanon. For her dissertation, she is looking at how sectarian identities are constructed and deconstructed in conflict areas like Iraq. Specifically, she is investigating how the sectarian narrative impacts on Iraqi Sunnis and Iraqi Shiites’ discriminatory attitudes.

She was born and raised in Iraqi Kurdistan Region and, prior to attending Michigan State University, worked as an instructor at the University of Dohuk/Iraq for three years. At the age of 19 she was granted the UNESCO Co-Sponsored Fellowships Program to study in Italy. She has a BA in letters and philosophy and an MA in education earned from the University of Foggia/Italy. She also has an MA in sociology earned from Michigan State University.