Lana Barkawi, Ph.D., is an experienced executive and artistic director, publisher, fundraiser, curator, and leader in the field of Arab and SWANA culture and community building. She serves as the publisher of Mizna: SWANA Literature and Art and producer of Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival. Her interest in fostering a local, national, and international space for Arab and Muslim art and community has brought Mizna in partnership with many artists and organizations to present creative work that engages, problematizes, and delights. She has a doctorate in biochemistry, and her professional approach is rooted in her training in ecological biochemistry, where fundamental questions are approached collaboratively with creative thinking and discovery-based inquisitiveness and resourcefulness. She has written and spoken widely on the topic of Arab and SWANA cultural production and equity issues in the arts. She has served on grant panels for the Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, among others. Under Lana’s leadership, Mizna has grown to be an award-winning organization recognized nationally and internationally for critical and artistically excellent work.