Essraa Nawar is the Assistant Dean for Library DEI Initiatives and Development (Full Librarian) at Chapman University and the Host of the TV Show “Salon Essraa: The TV Show Telling Inspiring Stories One Egyptian Expat at a Time.
She is an accomplished professional, holds a diverse educational background, including a Bachelor’s degree in commerce from Alexandria University, Egypt, an MBA from the American Management & Business Administration Institute, Cambridge, MA, an MA in Organizational Leadership from Brandman University, California, and an MLIS from San Jose State University, California. Currently pursuing her PDH in educational leadership, Essraa has been serving as the Development Librarian and Chair of the Arts, Exhibits, and Events Committee at the Leatherby Libraries, Chapman University California, since 2009. She has significantly contributed to raising over 5 million dollars for university libraries and curated impactful exhibits globally. Her experience spans prestigious organizations in Qatar, Washington D.C., and Alexandria, Egypt, including Bibliotheca Alexandrina and The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.
Essraa Nawar is a distinguished professional, speaker, and workshop facilitator, renowned for her expertise in librarianship, academic library programs, diversity, and fundraising strategies. Recognized by esteemed organizations such as the American Library Association Library Association, she has received multiple awards and grants, including the prestigious International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) fellowship. Her outstanding contributions were also acknowledged through her appointment as Association of College and Research Libraries (Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) member of the week and the receipt of the Ken Haycock Award for Exceptional Professional Promise from San Jose State University
Essraa Nawar is an influential figure, having been invited by the Egyptian Government to participate in a conference showcasing the resilience of female Egyptian expatriates. Her diverse interests encompass marketing, branding, communications, fundraising, and promoting cultural understanding. A frequent contributor to esteemed publications, she actively engages in public speaking and media appearances, championing diversity, cultural intelligence, and empowering Muslim women. During her leisure, Essraa enjoys reading, traveling, and spending quality time with her family, including her husband and children, who excel in sports. She fervently advocates for changing narratives about Muslim women and breaking barriers through her social media presence, employing the hashtag #changethenarrative.
At Chapman University, She co-curated the exhibits “Empowering Muslim Women”, “Egypt the Revolution Continues” and a “ A Country called Syria”. Over the years Essraa has studied, lived and worked in many places, including the Gulf area (Qatar), Washington D.C., where she worked for The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and Alexandria, Egypt where she worked for Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2009, she moved with her husband and family to Orange County, California in 2009.
Essraa speaks and holds workshops all over the world whether in the United States, Europe or the middle east on topics of librarianship, the importance of exhibits and programs in academic libraries and how to use them as an educational tool, how libraries can be a hub for diversity , pairing fundraising with diversity efforts as well as successful fundraising models for academic libraries. She is also passionate about interfaith relationships and the power of living in a diverse world. She is currently writing a piece titled “Organic versus staged diversity” that will appear by the end of 2019.
In June 2019, she was invited to speak to the MELCom International, the European Association of Middle East Librarians about her joinery as an “Accidental Middle East librarian” In Naples, Italy, and in October 2019 at the University of Austin, Texas to hold a workshop about diversity in academic libraries.
Nawar has been the recipient of several awards and grants from the American Library Association, the International Federation of libraries, Chapman University and San Jose State University over the last few years. She was recently appointed as an IFLA (International Federation of library associations) fellow and she also represented the American Library Association in Sharjah in November 2016. Essraa Nawar was also recognized as ACRL member of the week in July 2017. In May 2017, the College of Applied Sciences and Arts at San Jose State University named her the recipient of the Ken Haycock Award for Exceptional Professional Promise where she was honored by being the Outstanding Student speaker at the May 2017 convocation. http://ischoolconvocation.sjsu.edu/2017/speaker/student-speaker-1
In July 2017, Essraa has received an invitation from the Egyptian Government to participate in this conference that took place in Cairo from the 2nd to the 3rd of July 2017. This conference came under the sponsorship of the Egyptian President H.E. Abdelfattah El-Sisi. The Ministry of State for Emigration & Egyptian Expatriates’ Affairs and the National Council for Women have included Essraa due to her strong academic and professional achievements. She was able to showcase the strength, power, and resilience of female Egyptian expatriates. In addition, she was honored as one of the top 30 Egyptian women abroad. Since then, Essraa has been working closely with the Ministry of State for Emigration & Egyptian Expatriates’ Affairs and the National Council for Women on initiatives that will benefit the Egyptian economy, tourism, interfaith understanding and status of women.
In March 2018, Nawar was selected by the Orange County Interfaith Network and the house of worship tour to be one of the leaders of an interfaith trip going to the middle east.
Her professional interests include developing and implementing marketing, branding, and communications and fundraising practices to support academic Libraries as well as maintaining an integrated external relations model targeting prospective donors, current donors, board members and external partners.
Essraa is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, the Orange County Register and several other magazines and blogs where she shares her story as a Muslim Women living in American and is also trying to bridge cultural misunderstandings between Arabs, Muslims and Americans through her artwork. Essraa was also recently appointed to join as a Women Leader in the Internet Marketing Association. She is very passionate about and active in the topics of diversity, cultural and religious intelligence, interfaith dialogue and empowering Muslim Women. She thrives best in diverse environments and believes in the power of humanity. She thinks that we all have the power to change the world one person at a time. In addition to her agile and full regional speaking engagements, she recently took her diversity message to the international stage where she spoke at a TED conference at the Technical University of Munich on how to feel welcomed and empowered in a diverse world. Her talk (only live for a few months) has been viewed and shared more than 6000 times and have since been sharing her message through public speaking, radio and TV interviews, podcasts in numerous venues and much more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myl722kHxbU
In her free time, Essraa enjoys her daily Yoga practice, reading, listening to music, and traveling spending time with her husband who she calls her best friend and soul mate. Essraa also enjoys spending time with her two boys and a girl.
Essraa is very active on all social media platforms and uses the hashtag #changethenarrative to change how the world views Muslim women and break barriers.
Website: https://essraanawar.com/
Facebook/Twitter/Instagram Handle: @essraanawar
Essraa Nawar 