Assistant Professor
she/her
Heba Gowayed is the Moorman-Simon Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Her research, which is global and comparative, examines how low-income people traverse social services, immigration laws, and their associated bureaucracies, while grappling with gender and racial inequalities.
Her book, Refuge, is an ethnography exploring the lives of Syrians seeking refuge in the United States, Canada, and Germany. In it she examines whether and how these countries recognize and invest in new arrivals’ humanity and potential, shaping their economic realities and feelings of belonging. As countries receive refugees through their social welfare systems, Refuge raises a mirror to how these systems (re)produce social inequality.
Gowayed received her BA from the American University in Cairo in Political Science and her PhD from Princeton University in Sociology.