Membership and Programs Senior Lead
Dr. Nagham El Karhili is the Membership and Programs Senior Lead at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). She oversees the full membership cycle—recruiting and mentoring new tech platforms and facilitating ongoing engagement with industry, government, and civil-society partners. Her work ensures GIFCT’s membership and programming strategies advance its mission to combat terrorism and violent extremism online while upholding human rights and addressing diverse multi-stakeholder needs.
At GIFCT, Dr. El Karhili designed a streamlined membership strategy that expands member access to technical solutions, tools, and resources critical to counterterrorism and trust-and-safety efforts, while strengthening the support member tech platforms receive. Her work has also included leading GIFCT Working Groups; convening experts across sectors and regions to offer advice on critical themes related to countering terrorism and violent extremism online and delivering targeted, substantive outputs. In her capacity as Membership and Programs Senior Lead, she regularly contributes to high-level panels and global multi-stakeholder engagements.
Before joining GIFCT, Dr. El Karhili served as Program and Research Manager at the Horizon Forum, a think-do tank focused on hate-funding in philanthropy, where she led investigative projects and convenings that informed policy recommendations and sector best practices.
She holds a PhD in Communication from Georgia State University, where she was a Presidential Fellow at the Transcultural Conflict & Violence Initiative examining violent extremism, organizational religious identity, and civil-society resilience. She has taught media, religion, and peacebuilding at Georgia State University and Purdue University, and has also earned a BS and an MS from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Dr. El Karhili has been published in Journal of Media and Religion, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, and Media, War, & Conflict, alongside contributions to policy reports for media-tech and counterterrorism audiences, where her work bridges academic research, human‑rights sensitive policy development, and cross‑sector partnership to counterterrorism through transparent, accountable, and collaborative approaches.