Associate Professor

E: aalrawi@sfu.ca
Room: K8645

C.V.

LinkedIn, Amazon books, Personal website

I am an Associate Professor of News, Social Media, and Public Communication at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Since 2019, I have been the Director of the Disinformation Project whose findings and insights were featured in different outlets nationally and internationally.

I began my full-time media career in 2002 by serving as a Communication Officer and later a Spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq. My work revolved around communicating about the humanitarian situation in Iraq.

Between 2002 and 2006, I wrote several investigative reports for the ICRC about the victims of war in Iraq in both Arabic and English languages. I also worked as a freelance radio journalist for a couple of US-based radio stations, and one of my 2003 radio reports on prisoners' abuse was nominated for a US national award in 2004. 

In 2006, I started my full-time academic career by teaching in the Sultanate of Oman. Soon after that, I began studying for my second Ph.D. study in media and communication research at Leicester University in the UK. Overall, I taught at several colleges and universities in 5 countries including serving as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media & Communication at Erasmus University in the Netherlands (2011-2014) during which I won a few teaching awards. I served later as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University in Canada (2015-2018). 

In terms of peer reviewed publications, I published 14 academic books, 100+ academic research papers, 2 co-edited books, and 25+ book chapters. I also delivered presentations, lectures, and talks in over 100 events nationally and internationally, and I advised and offered expert consultancy and feedback to numerous NGOs, humanitarian and civic groups, the UN, non-profit organizations, and governmental bodies such as the Public Order Emergency Commission and Elections BC. I was also invited as an expert witness at the Canadian Senate and twice at the House of Commons. 

As for academic service, I currently serve in the editorial board of more than half a dozen academic journals including  Journal of Popular Culture since 2009, Communication Studies, and Digital Journalism. I also blind reviewed over 230 research papers submitted to more than 100 different academic journals.

At SFU, I successfully received research funding from more than 20 projects serving as a collaborator, co-applicant and pricicpal applicant, and I worked with more than 45 research assistants including 2 postdoc fellows to collaboratively produce research papers, reports, and a few books. The total funds that have been allocated to my budget as a principal and co-applicant are over $1 million, and the funders include SSHRC, CIHR, the Department of Heritage's Digital Citizen Contribution Program, Mitacs, British Columbia’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, and various SFU's internal grants.

• 2008-2012 - Ph.D., Media & Communication Studies, University of Leicester, UK. The thesis is entitled “TV coverage of the 2010 elections in Iraq: A study of the evening newscasts of four Iraqi satellite channels”.
• 1999-2004 – Ph.D., English Literature, College of Arts, Baghdad University, Iraq. The thesis is entitled “The Arab image in twentieth century English popular fiction”.
• 1997-1999 - M.A., English Literature, College of Arts, Baghdad University, Iraq. The thesis is entitled “Aldous Huxley as a satirist: A study of a selection of his novels”. 
• 1994-1997 - B.A., English Language & Literature, Al-Ma’mon University College, Baghdad, Iraq (Cum Laude & winner of a 1997 national award in the field of 'English Language & Literature'). 

Social media, News, Computational journalism, Popular culture, International communication, Disinformation, Digital methods.