Layla Khayr

Dr. Layla Khayr, LICSW, is a clinical social worker, researcher, and educator. A school social worker by training, she spent more than eight years providing social emotional counseling, training and support in private Islamic schools. Her experience working with Muslim and Arab American children, youth, families and communities stimulated her research, which explores how the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and values influence identity development and negotiation. She is dedicated to cultivating spaces in which emerging social workers are prepared to become agents of change through cultural humility and anti-oppressive approaches. She finds the graduate classroom an exhilarating space where all her interests come together: social emotional well-being, mental health outcomes for underrepresented and historically excluded populations, community care and advocacy, and her passion for social justice.