Nominees for the BRISMES Committee on Academic Freedom (2025-2028)

Kholoud Saber Barakat

My name is Kholoud Saber Barakat, a feminist mental health practitioner, researcher, and Egyptian activist with a long-standing commitment to human rights, feminist knowledge production, and academic freedom. 

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Psychological Sciences at UCLouvain University in Belgium. I earned my Ph.D. in 2021 with dissertation titled, “Women’s Trauma and Resilience through a Feminist Lens” which explored the psychological consequences of gendered violence during and after the Arab uprisings. Since then, I work as a researcher and consultant focusing on trauma and resistance in relation to sexual and political violence, war, and displacement. I am deeply committed to politicizing mental health discourse by contextualizing psychological suffering within systems of oppression and structural violence, and by developing culturally grounded interventions that centre the lived realities of marginalized communities.

My engagement with academic freedom is rooted in both activism and scholarship. Since my undergraduate years at Cairo University, I was an active member of the student movement, co-founding and participating in student coalitions advocating for university autonomy, freedom of expression on campus, and the reform of restrictive university laws. I represented students in the "9 March Movement for the Independence of Universities" and later specialized in research, writing, and training on academic freedom and student rights.

From 2007 to 2015, I served as a teaching assistant and then assistant lecturer at Cairo University. In parallel, I led the Academic Freedom and Student Rights Program at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), an Egyptian NGO focused on freedom of speech and academic rights. In 2011, I became deputy director of the organization, overseeing a team of researchers and advocacy efforts, including collaboration with the Scholars at Risk Network. Under my leadership, the organization received MESA Academic Freedom Award in recognition of its critical role in supporting the academic community. Recently, I was dismissed from Cairo University due to my political activism—a clear violation of my academic freedom and a turning point that renewed my lifelong commitment to defending the rights and freedoms of the academic community. I am eager to contribute to the BRISMES Committee on Academic Freedom—particularly at this urgent moment following October 7, as academic communities across the globe face intensifying attacks on their rights and freedoms. I hope to bring to the committee my lived experience, research expertise, and activist perspective to help defend academic freedom and advocate for universities as spaces that protect activism and uphold the right to express diverse and critical opinions.