Maha Yahya is a political scientist with an interdisciplinary background, having transitioned from architecture to political science and policy research. Her early work focused on urban environments and people-centered design before shifting to socio-economic and political contexts in the Middle East. She holds PhDs in social sciences and humanities from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from the Architectural Association School of Architecture. Yahya has served as regional adviser on social and urban policies at UN-ESCWA, spearheading strategic initiatives on democratic transitions in the Arab world, and as director for the United Nations Development Program in Lebanon, where she was the principal author of the National Human Development Report 2008–2009: Toward a Citizen’s State. She also founded and edited the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies. Since 2017, she has been the Director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, where her research emphasizes political violence, identity politics, inequality, citizenship, and the refugee crisis.