Raised in the U.S., Ustadha Rania Awaad began her formal study of the traditional Islamic sciences when her parents permitted her to travel to Damascus, Syria at the age of 14. Her desire to continue studying the Deen resulted in multiple trips back to Damascus, interspersed between her high school, college and medical studies. She was honored to receive Ijaazah (authorization to teach) several branches of the Shari’ah sciences at the hands of many renowned scholars, including many female scholars. She has received Ijaazah to teach Tajwid in both the Hafs and Warsh recitations from the late eminent Syrian scholar, Shaykh Abu Hassan al-Kurdi. In addition to completing several advanced texts of the Shafi’i madhhab, she is licensed to teach texts of Maliki fiqh, Adab and Ihsan. Currently, Ustadha Rania teaches online and local classes for The Rahmah Foundation, Rabata, and is on faculty of Zaytuna College where she teaches courses in Shafi’i fiqh, women’s issues in fiqh, and has helped develop and co-direct the Tajweed and Hifz progam. Ustadha Rania also a medical doctor with a specialty in Psychiatry. She completed her Psychiatric residency and fellowship training at Stanford University where she is currently on the faculty as a Clinical Instructor in the Stanford Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences department. Her medical interests include addressing mental health care concerns in the Muslim community- particularly that of Muslim women and girls. She has been awarded grants from the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) to conduct research on this topic and has presented her findings at several medical conferences. Other on-going endeavors include the compilation of manuscripts addressing female-related mental health and medical issues from a fiqh-oriented perspective. She currently serves as the Director of the Rahmah Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching Muslim women and girls traditional Islamic knowledge. In this capacity she also heads the Murbbiyah Mentoring Program which trains young women how to teach and mentor Muslim girls and teens. Ustadha Rania is both a wife and a mother; she has been counseling and teaching women classes on Tajwid, Shafi’i Fiqh, Ihsan, marriage and raising children since 1999.

Amin G. Aaser, 29, is the founder and Managing Director of Noor Kids. Amin is an expert on identity, self-confidence, and self-esteem among Muslim children in America. He has been featured on NPR, BBC, The Huffington Post, The Boston Herald, and The Christian Science Monitor, among a host of other media outlets. Amin developed his expertise in storytelling under the tutelage of Arina Isaacson, an internationally recognized, and award winning, theater director actress, master storyteller and visual artist. She is founder and artistic director of the San Francisco School of Improvisation. Amin received the Outstanding Instructor award for his service as an Instructor of “Storytelling for Leadership,” at the University of California Berkeley. Amin began his career in business management, working for Fortune 500 companies such as 3M, Target Corporation, and General Mills. He attained his MBA at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and graduated magna cum laude from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, triple-majoring in finance, marketing, and supply-chain management.