Maya El Helou is a feminist researcher. She holds a Master’s degree in Gender and Women studies in the Middle East and North Africa from the American University in Cairo (AUC). In 2015, she was awarded the Magda Al-Nowaihi award for Gender Studies for the work she did on her thesis The UN-Touchables: Humans Rights Discourses and the Challenges of Emancipatory Politics in Lebanese Women’s Movements. El Helou was a founding member of many feminist initiatives among them the feminist media monitor, and the gender talks (Dardashat Jandariya). Her interests rotate around feminism, migration studies, gender studies and queer theory, theories of othering, Marxism, the Lebanese civil war history and memory studies.