Mariam Al-khafaji is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Administration at the Wilder School and recently earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a concentration in Public Policy from Virginia Commonwealth University. Over the past academic year, Al-khafaji served as a Wilder Fellow with the Research Institute for Social Equity (RISE), contributing to several key research initiatives.
As part of the Wilder Collection digitization project at Virginia Union University, Al-khafaji assisted in publishing a digital archive website by processing artifacts from former Governor L. Douglas Wilder and completing associated metadata. Al-khafaji also serves as the graduate lead student on the “Girls for A Change” project—a mixed-methods study exploring the lived experiences of young Black girls. Responsibilities included community participant recruitment for focus groups and interviews, qualitative data analysis and coding using Dedoose, and contributing to a statewide report aimed at informing nonprofit organizations, policymakers, and legislators about strategies to better support Black girls in Richmond City.
Additional contributions include supporting a research project focused on the experiences of international students at the Wilder School and assisting with RISE’s podcast production. Al-khafaji is deeply passionate about social justice and social equity, consistently engaging in research that centers on marginalized and vulnerable populations.
In recognition of academic and research excellence, Al-khafaji was named a 2025 ASPA Founders’ Fellow, presenting research on emotional labor and public service motivation (PSM) among crisis response professionals. Ongoing research includes an investigation into how cultural stigma and levels of religiosity influence Arab American Muslim college students’ willingness to seek mental health services—a study recently presented at the Social Equity Leadership Conference.
Al-khafaji is a Fellow of the Wilder Graduate Scholars Fellowship, a competitive program that places top full-time master’s students with host employers across the Richmond region.