Biography

Dr. Ammar has an extensive administrative record and has served in numerous capacities including Women Studies Department Chair, Graduate Studies Director, Program Director of Paralegal Studies and Associate Dean. Before coming to Rowan she spent 9 years as the Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, the newest university in Ontario. Prior to that she spent 15 years at Kent State University, Ohio and moved up in the academic ranks from Assistant to full professor in 12 years. Before her tenure at Kent State Dr. Ammar worked in a variety of organizations both in the US and outside north America. These include: Research Assistant at the Institute of Women Studies in the Arab, Beirut-Lebanon,  Program Director at the Institute of Community Research, Hartford Connecticut, Planning and Budget Officer at the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department, Youngstown, Ohio; Adjunct Professor at Mount Union College, Alliance, Ohio, and Adjunct Professor at Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. Dr. Ammar’s recent research includes work on elderly abuse in the Greater Toronto Area, violence against immigrant women in Canada, the United States as well as working on socio-legal issues related to Muslim women both in western courts and in Arab courts. She is also working with the National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project (NIWAP) American University Washington College of Law on a number of projects dealing with domestic violence in battered immigrant women's families and evaluating the impact of the US Violence Against Women Act on services provided to battered immigrant women. Dr. Ammar also worked with the Women of Color Network (WOCN) on evaluating their Women of Color Leadership Opportunities projects funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration on Children, Youth and Families' Violence Prevention and Services Program.

Dr. Ammar has published several manuscripts, more than 90 refereed articles, book writing and policy reports. Her work has been used in a number of international agencies and governments such as the:

• 2012 Congressional Research Service;
• 2011 Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Cairo-Egypt;
• 2009 National Women Council and USAID, Cairo-Egypt;
• 2008 Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly;
• 2007 United Nations Population Funds’ State of the World Population;
• 2006 Human Watch Report on Women and Violence in Egypt;
• 2005 Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly's Resolution on Religion and Women in Europe; and
• 2002 United Nation's Basic Principles on Restorative Justice.

She has participated in a number of United Nations Conferences, has authored and co-authored several reports for the United Nations and has been a consultant for the organization.

Since 2000, she has garnered more than $ 3 million in grants from private, state, provincial, federal and international sources of funding.

She is a frequent speaker at conferences with close to 150 presentations both invited and refereed. She has served on review panels for the Soros Foundation (Open Society Institute), National Institute of Justice, Social Science and Humanities Council and Department of Justice on research proposals addressing violence against women, and underserved communities. She also served as a participant in or consultant to activities of the governments of Bahrain, Lebanon, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and the US to address issues of women, development and victimization.

She is a member of numerous non-governmental organizations both in the US and Arab countries. Some of these include the:

• Alliance of Arab Women in Cairo (Egypt);
• Centre for Religion and Society (University of Victoria, British Columbia); and
• National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project (NIWAP).

She received her Bachelors of Science (Honours) and Masters of Science degrees in Sociology from Salford University, Greater Manchester University, United Kingdom and she earned her Ph.D. degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida in Gainesville, U.S.A.