Myriam Francois Cerrah

Career

François currently works as a freelance journalist, in both print and broadcast media. She currently works as a news correspondent. Her articles have been featured in The Guardian, The Huffington Post, New Statesman, Your Middle East, The London Paper, Jadaliyya, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, The Daily Telegraph, Salon, Index on Censorship, The F-Word and the magazine Emel.

She is also a television documentary presenter. In 2016, she presented "The Muslim Pound" (aired July 2015) on BBC1. In 2015, she presented BBC1 documentary on the genocide at Srebrenica, which aired on BBC 1 on Monday 6 July 2015. The documentary was nominated for a Santford Saint Martin award for "best religious programming".

She is a former correspondent for the Huffington Post (2014–15), where she broke a headline story on an exclusive 36-page document written by alleged al-Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

She has worked as a programme researcher at the BBC, and as a programme producer on Al Jazeera's Head to Head (2013–present).

She is former assistant editor and features writer at Emel magazine (2008–09).

She is a regular guest on BBC Big Questions (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) and Sunday Morning Live.

She has appeared on Newsnight (2009), 4thought.tv (2011), BBC News (2010), Crosstalk (2010), BBC Radio (2012), Sky News and documentaries including Divine Women, presented by Bettany Hughes. In 2012, she commented the French presidential elections for Sky News, as well as the French presidential inauguration and 2012 local elections and regularly comments on current affairs, in particular related to France or the Middle East.

Film

A former actress, her screen career began at age 12 in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995) in which she played Margaret Dashwood alongside Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. She went on to star in Paws (1997) alongside Nathan Cavaleri and Heath Ledger, and New Year's Day (2000), in which she played Heather.

Academia

She is currently a Research Associate at SOAS, in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East where her work focuses on issues related to British Muslims, integration and racism.

She previously worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS), Georgetown University (2005–07) in Washington DC. While undertaking her doctorate, François also works as an academic tutor in the Oxford University Department for Politics and International Relations, where she teaches Middle East politics.

She has guest lectured at universities including Harvard University (2014), Birmingham, (2014), Luther College (2015) and an annual guest lecture at Kingston University, UK (2012–14). She is due to deliver a lecture as part of the 2015-16 Ebor Series at York St John University.

Education

François-Cerrah is studying for a DPhil at Oxford University in Oriental Studies focused on Islamic political movements in Morocco.

She has an MA with honours in Middle East politics from Georgetown University, and a BA from Cambridge University in Social and Political science.

Personal life

In 2003, at 21 years old, François-Cerrah converted to Islam after graduating from Cambridge. At the time, she was a skeptical Roman Catholic. She rejects the use of the words "convert" or "revert" as "exclusionary", describing herself as "just Muslim".