Maha Hilal is the inaugural Michael Ratner Middle East fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. She is also an organizer with Witness Against Torture and a steering committee member of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition. Additionally, she serves on the board of the DC chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. Hilal earned her doctorate in 2014 from the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University in Washington, DC. The title of her dissertation is "Too Damn Muslim to be Trusted": The War on Terror and the Muslim American Response.