| Mai Yamani | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1956 Cairo, Egypt |
| Occupation | Anthropologist, Scholar, Author, Researcher |
| Notable work(s) |
Visiting scholar at Carnegie Middle East Centre, Beirut, 2008-2009. Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Washington DC, 2008 |
Dr. Mai Yamani (Arabic: مي يماني; born 1956) is a Saudi Arabian independent scholar, author, and anthropologist.
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Dr. Mai Yamani was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1956 to an Iraqi mother from Mosul and a Saudi Arabian father from Mecca. Her father is Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani who gained international fame as Saudi Arabia's Minister of Petroleum Affairs. Her paternal grandfathers came from Yemen, hence the surname Yamani "from Yemen". Her early education included schooling in Baghdad, Iraq and in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia. She studied French at Chateau Mont Choisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1967-1975. She received her A.B. Degree (Summa cum Laude: Highest honors) from Bryn Mawr College outside Philadelphia, and subsequently attended Oxford University where she was the first Saudi Arabian woman to obtain a M.St. and a D.Phil. from Oxford in Social Anthropology. She started her career as a university lecturer in Saudi Arabia and moved on to become a scholar at leading international think tanks in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. She has been a research fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. She speaks fluent Arabic, English, French and Spanish, and has a working knowledge of Persian, Hebrew and Italian.