The College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) has named Amy Fallas the Akram Khater Distinguished Fellow of Arab Migration Studies, recognizing her contributions to research, teaching and public engagement in the history of the Middle East.

Fallas joined NC State this fall as an assistant professor of history. As the Akram Khater Distinguished Fellow, she will contribute to the Department of History and the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies, which is dedicated to researching the history of Lebanese immigrants and sharing that knowledge with scholars, students and families alike.

Through the creation of endowed positions, donors enable the college to invest in faculty whose scholarship advances their disciplines while enriching the student experience. These appointments provide additional resources for research, mentorship and community engagement, ensuring that academic excellence continues to flourish across the college.

The Khater fellowship honors Akram Khater, a University Faculty Scholar, history professor, the Khayrallah Chair in Lebanese Diaspora Studies, and director of the Khayrallah Center. Khater’s scholarship on Arab migration and founding leadership of the center helped establish NC State as a leading hub for the study of the Arab diaspora.

This endowed fellowship, established through a generous gift from an anonymous donor, reflects a commitment to advancing scholarship and educating future generations in the field of Arab migration studies. It will enable Fallas to continue building connections between students, researchers, faculty, staff and diasporic communities at NC State and beyond.

“It is a tremendous honor to hold a fellowship named after Akram Khater, whose academic scholarship and public-facing work have been foundational to the study of Arab migration and its diasporas,” Fallas said. “His impact has influenced countless scholars—myself included—and especially his commitment to empathy, accessibility and community-informed methods in historical research.”

Fallas plans to expand research, teaching and public engagement around what she described as “two geographies that are sparingly considered together—the Middle East and Latin America… and have so much to teach us about the global impact of Arab migration.” She also hopes to strengthen collaborations among students, faculty, researchers and diasporic communities while creating new opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship, experiential learning and international partnerships.

“Through these initiatives, I envision new opportunities for students to develop skill sets and experiences that are becoming in demand for a wide range of careers while also becoming part of this ongoing legacy of transnational connections between Latin America and the Middle East,” Fallas said.

“This distinguished fellowship will bring vital expertise and leadership to CHASS and NC State in an interdisciplinary research area, migration studies, that is of crucial importance to understanding the world, past and present,” said Traci Brynne Voyles, head of the Department of History. “In hiring professor Amy Fallas for this role, we build on some of the department’s already outstanding existing strengths in public history and Middle East history, making us one of the strongest homes for those fields in the country.”  

Fallas is a scholar of the modern and transnational Middle East, working across the fields of modern Middle East and late Ottoman history, religious studies, archival studies and Middle East-Latin American studies. Her research focuses on religious and ethnic differences, communal institutions, charitable networks, and sectarianism and historical memory in modern Egypt and the transnational connections between El Salvador and Palestine during the 20^th and 21^st-centuries.

Before joining NC State, Fallas served as a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of California, Davis. She earned a master’s degree in history from Yale University and a doctorate in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara. 

Fallas previously worked in museums, archives, libraries and historical societies before pursuing an academic career. Those experiences continue to shape her commitment to making history accessible beyond the classroom.

In addition to her scholarship, Fallas serves as an associate editor of the Arab Studies Journal. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as History Compass and NACLA Report on the Americas. She has also been published in The Washington Post and other national and international outlets.