Razan Bayan is a PhD student in the joint Peace Studies and History program with the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Department of History. She holds B.A.s in Human Rights and History from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with minors in Arabic, African/Middle Eastern Studies, and Mathematics. Razan's culminating project as part of the University Honors Program at SMU was a study on the collective amnesia in Muslim American youth regarding the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib detention centers.
Razan's research interests include the War on Terror and securitization; US militarism and imperialism; state violence against Muslims; colonial history and postcolonialism; and Islamophobia studies. At Notre Dame, Razan plans to study the history of US government-inflicted violence against Muslim during the War on Terror and the reactions of the general public to its revelation.