Mona Hamdy, executive director of the Mosaic Foundation, will present “Arab Women: Perception and Reality” at a Brigham Young University David M. Kennedy Center lecture Friday, Oct. 23, at 10 a.m. in 238 Herald R. Clark Building. Admission is free and the public is welcome to attend.

Hamdy’s research specializes on a series of essays by prominent Arab women called “Bikinis and Burkas: The Power, Passion and Politics of the Modern Arab Woman.”

Hamdy was recently appointed executive director of the newly created Earth Village Project. Previously, she worked as associate producer for the Associated Press Television Network-Cairo, was senior editor of Enigma, the Arab world's biggest English-language lifestyle magazine, and worked as assistant director of development at BYU’s FARMS.

Hamdy received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in political science from the American University in Cairo.

The Mosaic Foundation is an American charitable and educational organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and children, and to increasing awareness and understanding about the peoples of the Arab World in the United States.

This lecture will be archived online. For more information on events sponsored by the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, see the calendar online at kennedy.byu.edu.

For more information about this lecture, contact Lee Simons at (801) 422-2652.