Saema Somalya is the Chair of the Board of Directors for Muslim Advocates. She is a lawyer who serves as General Counsel at financial services firm Remitly. She previously was a Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has practiced corporate and securities law for 20 years. Ms. Somalya also served as the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Warren Resources, Inc and as corporate counsel for PepsiCo, Inc., where she held the position of Senior Legal Director and Senior Corporate Counsel (2013-2014) and Legal Director and Corporate Counsel (2009-2013). From 2002 to 2009, Ms. Somalya was an associate with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Linklaters LLP, and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. She received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University in 1999 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2002.

Baher Azmy is the Legal Director of the Center of Constitutional Rights. He directs all litigation around issues related to the promotion of civil and human rights. At the Center for Constitutional Rights, he has personally litigated cases related to discriminatory policing practices (stop and frisk), government surveillance, the rights of Guantánamo detainees, and accountability for victims of torture. In joining the Center for Constitutional Rights, Baher took leave from his faculty position at Seton Hall University School of Law, where he taught Constitutional Law and directed the Civil Rights and Constitutional Litigation Clinic. While a Clinical Law Professor, he successfully represented Murat Kurnaz, a German resident of Turkish descent imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, until his release in August 2006. He has authored numerous legal briefs in the federal appeals courts and the United States Supreme Court on issues related to human rights and constitutional law, testified before Congress, and produced substantial scholarship on issues of access to justice. Baher is a magna cum laude graduate of both the University of Pennsylvania and NYU School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Snow Public Interest Scholar. Since 2012 he has been selected as one of the top 500 lawyers in America by Lawdragon Magazine. Baher has been published by and appeared on major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Review, 60 Minutes, PBS Newshour, and MSNBC. He is an adjunct professor at NYU and Yale Law Schools, where he teaches Civil Rights Law.

Aasiya Mirza Glover is an attorney at the Plaintiffs' firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP, where she represents defrauded investors in private securities fraud litigation. She previously worked at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where she represented investors in investor-state arbitrations and companies in contract disputes and securities litigation. In pro bono work, she has represented clients in cases on Muslim civil rights, transgender children's rights, incarcerated mothers' family law issues, and immigration, as well as in capital cases, on international diplomatic responses to the genocide of the Rohingya, and in submitting a Supreme Court amicus brief against the Muslim ban. She was a Rapporteur to the ICCA-ASIL Task Force on Damages in International Arbitration, which developed the first public, free web app on damages in international arbitration. Before becoming an attorney, Aasiya worked as a City Year corps member in Chicago.

Aasiya's legal work has been published by Reuters, Bloomberg Law, and Law360. Her fiction has been published in the Notre Dame Review, Catapult, Fatal Flaw, Headland, and the Syrian literary journal Damazine. Aasiya is originally from Brunswick, Tennessee, attended Indiana University as a Wells Scholar and member of the Board of Aeons, and earned an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a JD from the University of Chicago.

Johnathan J. Smith served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice until April 2024. In this capacity, Johnathan helped oversee the Division’s investigatory, enforcement, and policy efforts. Johnathan rejoined the Civil Rights Division in July 2021; he previously served in the Civil Rights Division as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General from October 2014 to January 2017. Immediately prior to the Civil Rights Division, Johnathan served in the administration of New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo from January 2019 to July 2021. During his tenure in New York State government, Johnathan served as the Governor’s Deputy Secretary for Civil Rights and Workforce and as the Interim Commissioner for the New York State Division of Human Rights. He has also previously worked as the legal director at Muslim Advocates, a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and a litigation associate at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Johnathan started his legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable Carl E. Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Johnathan has also previously served as a lecturer at the University of Michigan Law School. Johnathan is a graduate from Harvard College, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and NYU School of Law.

Nahid Aliniazee is a philanthropist and community activist. She sits on the boards of several nonprofits, including El Camino Hospital Foundation, Northwest Suburban College, Developments in Literacy (DIL), and Girls Learn International (Advisory Board), an initiative of the Feminist Majority Foundation. She is also a board member of India Community Center, the largest Indian American community center in North America. She has previously served on the boards of Castilleja School, Islamic Networks Group (ING), and Indian Muslim Relief & Charities (IMRC). In many of her board roles, Ms. Aliniazee has served in a development capacity where she has led numerous fundraising efforts. Her primary areas of interest are women’s rights, minority civil rights, and education.

Ms. Aliniazee received a B.S. from Oregon State University with a major in Education and a M.Ed. from Loyola University in Chicago with a focus on Educational Administration. She joined Berkeley College in New York as the Director for Admissions in 1995 and served as the Dean of Education from 1997-1999.

Mohammad Fadel is the President Emeritus of NAML. He joined the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in January 2006 as an assistant professor teaching business law and Islamic law. Professor Fadel previously was an Associate in the corporate and securities practice in the New York office of the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. He has clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. In addition to his J.D., Professor Fadel holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.

Naiel Iqbal is an investment professional at hedge fund Tiger Global Management. He was previously an analyst at Caxton Associates, a macro hedge fund. Prior to these roles, he was a Portfolio Manager in Proprietary Trading at J.P. Morgan in New York. He started his career in the Special Situations Group at Deutsche Bank. Mr. Iqbal graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently, he is President of Muppies, the largest non‐profit dedicated to empowering and organizing Muslim business professionals. He is also a Committee Chair for the Penn Alumni Interview Program and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Shahzad A. Malik, formerly a Shareholder & Chair of the Tax Practice at Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth PC, is currently a Partner at Nixon Peabody LLP (Los Angeles). He was previously a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld and also practiced at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. His tax practice focuses primarily on merger & acquisition transactions, particularly private equity and technology transactions. During the course of his career, Mr. Malik has worked on transactions with an aggregate enterprise value in excess of $30 billion. He is the primary author of the comprehensive treatise, “Taxation of Securities Transactions.” He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times on various occasions. Mr. Malik is a founding board member of Muslim Advocates.

Rashid Alvi currently serves as Chief Strategy Officer and V.P. of Operations at NovoPath, Inc. Mr. Alvi formerly served as Managing Director of the Harvard Capital Group. Prior to his post at the Harvard Capital group, Mr. Alvi was the Deputy Director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program (ILSP) at Harvard Law School. Prior to Harvard Capital Group and ILSP, at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, Mr. Alvi specialized in mergers and acquisitions. He then moved to Wall Street, working at Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs. He subsequently joined Acro Healthcare, LLC, a privately held start-up company in the specialty pharmaceuticals industry, in an executive capacity. After helping the company grow, Mr. Alvi advised on its sale to Lincare, Inc., a public company. Following the sale of Acro, Mr. Alvi worked as a principal at a boutique business advisory firm, where he continues to consult from time to time. Mr. Alvi holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School, an M.A. from the University of Southern California, and a B.A. from Binghamton University.

Kameelah Mu’Min Oseguera is the founder and president of Muslim Wellness Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting healing and emotional well-being in the American Muslim community through dialogue, education and training. She also serves as the Fellow for Spirituality, Wellness and Social Justice at the University of Pennsylvania and advisor for Penn Sapelo, the first Black Muslim Student organization on campus. Ms. Oseguera is a founding member of Muslims Make It Plain, a coalition of concerned Muslims working to inspire, empower and support grass roots mobilization and direct action to address police brutality, racial & religious profiling, unlawful surveillance and the overpolicing of America’s Black & Brown communities.

She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Psychology and MEd in Psychological Services. She has pursued further graduate education, completing a second Masters in Restorative Practices & Youth Counseling from the International Institute for Restorative Practices and obtaining a post-Masters certificate in Family Therapy from the Philadelphia Child & Family Therapy Training Center. Kameelah is a certified instructor in Adult, Higher Education & Youth Mental Health First Aid. She is pursuing her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, PA.