Amira Elghawaby

Expert Overview

Amira is an expert on issues of media representation, diversity and inclusion, hate crimes, human rights, and civic engagement.

Along with appearances on Canadian and international news networks, Amira has written and produced stories and commentary for CBC Radio, the Ottawa Citizen, Maclean’s, the Walrus, the Literary Review of Canada, and the Globe and Mail.  She is currently a contributing columnist for the Toronto Star.

In 2016, she led a project with New Canadian Media creating Canada’s first Ethnic Media and Diversity Style Guide.

Amira recently joined the Canadian Race Relations Foundation where she is leading its programming and outreach. Prior to that, Amira worked in Canada’s labour movement in communications and human rights. She also previously spent five years promoting the civil liberties of Canadian Muslims at the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) between 2012 to the fall of 2017.

Amira has had an extensive career supporting initiatives to counter hate and to promote inclusion, including as a past founding board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and past board member at the Silk Road Institute. She currently serves as a Commissioner on the Public Policy Forum’s Canadian Commission on Democratic Engagement. Amira is also a delegate of the 2022 Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference.

Amira was a writer-in-residence at the 2019 Literary Arts Residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Her 2019 TEDXOttawa talk is titled “Multiculturalism: Worth Defending”.