The Kulna Team

Our team emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings and have direct lived experience of organizing, uprising, arrest, imprisonment, torture, exile, and the long work of rebuilding. We carry that experience into our activism, art, and thought. Our members are prolific writers and media producers with deep credibility, coming from communities directly affected by the systemic crises we study. Our team members are:

Ahmed Gatnash

Executive Director

Libyan-British author and engineer. Kawaakibi’s co-founder and Executive Director. An expert on MENA authoritarianism and democracy movements.

Iyad El-Baghdadi

Lead: How to Liberate

Palestinian-Norwegian thinker and author. Internationallyrecognised expert on geopolitics, disinformation and transnational repression.

Ammara Alavi

Head of Operations

Kulna’s Operations Lead, an experienced Pakistani Norwegian project manager and developer.

Ramy Essam

Lead: Shefa

Revolutionary musician and artist known as the voice of Tahrir square. Torture survivor and healing advocate. Live event and broadcast media production specialist.

Khalid Al-Baih

Lead: Fadaa

Award-winning Sudanese political artist, analyst, and curator. Lead for Kulna’s art and culture space. Inaugural Soros Art Fellow

Leyla Hussein

Wellbeing Specialist

Somali-British psychotherapist, award-winning anti-FGM campaigner and former Rector of the University of St Andrews.

Ori Goldberg

Editorial

Scholar, author, and former national security consultant who has become a prominent and prolific Israeli voice of dissent and moral clarity after Oct 7.

Kristine Vegard

Lead: Narrative & Visual

Norwegian artist, designer, and ex-economist. Kulna’s lead for narrative & visual identity.

Isabelle Davodi

Community Lead

Kulna’s Community Lead, host of the Shefa podcast.

Mohammad Saad Bin Riaz

Head of Platform

Media production expert and journalist based in Pakistan.