Dr. Waleed F. Mahdi is an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma, where he directs the Center for Middle East Studies. He is a scholar of US-Arab cultural politics, with expertise in visual culture, diaspora politics, and identity representation. His peer-reviewed work appears in top-tier journals, including American Quarterly, Journal of American Ethnic History, and Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.
Dr. Mahdi is the author of Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation (Syracuse University Press, 2020), which examines how Arab American belonging is constructed, defined, and redefined across Hollywood, Egyptian, and Arab American cinemas. His current book project, “Seeing Yemen: US Security and Yemeni Visual Memory,” offers a multi-faceted analysis of competing visual modes in seeing Yemen from a US-securitized lens characterized by violence and amnesia to a Yemeni lens marked by witnessing, grieving, and defying erasure. He is also co-editing Arab American Studies Unbound: Histories, Communities, and Disciplines, a book that provides new theoretical, historical, and geographic framings in the field of Arab American Studies.
Reflecting his leadership in the field, Dr. Mahdi served as President of the Arab American Studies Association (2024–2025) and continues to shape its national governance as Past President through 2027. In this capacity and through his center directorship, he expands international research networks and collaborates with scholars on field-defining projects. Working with the AASA Board, he helped organize the 2024 AASA Triennial Conference (Critical Futures in Arab American Studies) and is contributing to organizing the 2027 Conference (Arab American Studies as Practice: Working With Our Communities). He is also developing collaborations to convene an international conference on Yemen alongside a national symposium on the contemporary Middle East.
In addition to his research and institutional directorship, Dr. Mahdi provides expert testimony, keynotes, and strategic advisory for legal firms, educational institutions, academic associations, and international media outlets in both English and Arabic.