Board of Directors

Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture’s Board of Directors includes members of the Arab-American community and those interested in Arab cultural education — parents, educators, and professionals with various community affiliations. “Friends of Al-Bustan,” was formed in Fall 2006 as a committee of volunteers to support the board and raise funds for the organization.

Regina Morgan, Chair

Ms. Morgan has 20 years of experience in international financial industry. Her expertise is in governance, compliance, risk and project management as well as in systems and training design. Her civic engagement includes serving on the board of Philadelphia Fabric Workshop and Museum, chairing the Board of a Montgomery County-based music education non-profit organization (2013-2016), serving on Penn Museum Director’s Council (2016-2018), and as volunteer for the arts for the Greater Philadelphia Arts & Business Council. Originally from Moscow, Ms. Morgan has lived in Washington DC and Philadelphia for the past 25 years. She received her Masters of Science degree in Finance from George Washington University and Bachelors of Science in Economics and Advanced Mathematics from Moscow State University. Her passions lie in arts, reading, languages, and advocating for cultural diversity.

Lisa Denberry, Treasurer

Ms. Denberry relocated to Philadelphia from Amman, Jordan where she lived with her family for 12 years. While in Amman, she was a volunteer accountant for the international development organization Mercy Corps, and a part-time consultant for Integrated Services, Indigenous Solutions-a socioeconomic and technical consultancy in the Middle East. She has a BA in Finance from Illinois State University. Ms. Mowafi is currently a real estate agent in Philadelphia. She is always excited to share her knowledge of Arab culture with others.

Ikram Masmoudi, Secretary

Dr. Ikram Masmoudi is an Associate Professor, a writer and a literary translator. She grew up and was educated in Tunisia and France. She currently teaches Arabic Language, Literature and Culture at the University of Delaware. She has taught at Princeton University, Duke University, Université de Provence and Middlebury College. She is the author of a monograph on Iraqi fiction: War and Occupation in Iraqi Fiction, Edinburgh University Press, 2015. She translated Hadiya Hussein’s novel Beyond Love (Syracuse University Press, 2012). She is currently working on a new book project about Apocalyptic Imaginings in Arabic Fiction. Her research interests are in Arabic language and modern Arabic Literature. She travelled to and lived in many places in the Middle East and Europe such as: Egypt, UAE, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, France, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Finland and Denmark.

John Ghazvinian

John Ghazvinian is Executive Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania as well as an author, historian and former journalist, specializing in the history of US-Iran relations. His latest book, America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present (Knopf, 2021), is a comprehensive new survey of the bilateral relationship, based on years of archival research in both Iran and the United States, which he has been working on since 2008. He is also author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil (Harcourt, 2007), as well as coeditor of American and Muslim Worlds before 1900 (Bloomsbury, 2020). He has written for such publications as Newsweek, The Nation, the Sunday Times and the Huffington Post, and has taught modern Middle East history at a number of colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area. He earned his doctorate in history at Oxford University, and was the recipient of a "Public Scholar" fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2016-2017, as well as a fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation's special initiative on Islam in 2009-2010.

Alexa Firat

Dr. Alexa Firat came into her studies of Arabic and Arabic literature circuitously. After college graduation, she lived and worked in NYC for almost a decade during which she started learning Arabic at Columbia University. A few months studying Arabic at Birzeit University in Palestine in the mid-1990s was formative in shaping her trajectory, the first step beginning a master's degree in modern Arabic literature from UT-Austin, as well as studying in Damascus. After a summer studying Arabic in Egypt, she came to UPenn to start her PhD program followed by a year in Cairo studying Arabic and then a Fulbright-Hayes to Syria for dissertation research. She later went to Amman where she had a Fulbright Scholar fellowship spring 2013. Alexa Firat now works as a professor at Temple University teaching a wide range of subjects such as: Arabic language, Arabic literature courses, Arab cinema, and cultures of dissent.

Emily Neumeier

Dr. Emily Neumeier specializes in the visual and spatial cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on the Ottoman Empire. Her research addresses issues of architecture, cultural heritage, the history of archaeology, and nationalist discourses through art.

Betsy Mesard

Dr. Betsy Mesard moved to the Philadelphia area in 2019, and she, her husband, and her children quickly connected with the mission and programs of Al-Bustan. Betsy is a scholar of religion, ethics, and culture, with a PhD from the University of Virginia and teaching experience at multiple institutions of higher education. Beginning in 2007, Betsy lived for numerous periods in Egypt, where she developed extensive professional and personal ties. While in Egypt, she collaborated with the American University of Cairo's Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement to conduct research on a large youth volunteer organization. She has also been a close observer of the 2011 uprising in Egypt and its fallout, with components of her research examining the Kefaya movement, the "Wasat" stream of political thought, and the role of media and art in political and social change. She currently holds the position of Barbieri Scholar in the Humanities at Villanova University.

Irene Pelech

Irene Pelech earned her Bachelors and Masters of Music degrees at Temple University in Piano Performance and certificate in Music Education, along with a certificate in Elementary Education from Holy Family University. Presently, she performs as a piano soloist, mostly at Ukrainian community events in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, as well as in other cities. She also performs as an accompanist for other musicians and is the longtime accompanist for the Prometheus Ukrainian Male Chorus of Philadelphia.

Ms. Pelech worked as a General and Vocal Music Teacher in the School District of Philadelphia and recently retired after 36 years of service, during all of which she taught at the same school, John Moffet Elementary in the Fishtown area of the city, where the longtime liaison between the school and Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture was established in 2009. The Moffet School community has had the enormous privilege of educational enrichment through Arabic percussion, singing and visual arts.

Mohannad Ghawanmeh, Executive Director

Dr. Ghawanmeh is a teacher of communication and media for twenty-five years. He is co-founder of the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival produced by Mizna and curated the first editions of the Arab American National Museum’s film festival and the Minneapolis/St. Paul Italian Film Festival, as well as the series Melnitz Movies at University of California, Los Angeles. Mohannad is well awarded and published, having earned in 2020 his PhD from UCLA in Cinema and Media Studies. Born to Palestinian refugees and an immigrant to the United States, Mohannad has also lived in Egypt, Japan, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Mohannad thrives on conjoining education and cultural production, connecting people and places, enriching and inspiring.