Dr. Arshad I. Ali is multi-disciplinary scholar who studies youth culture, race, identity, and democratic engagement in educational practice. He examines how youth identities are mediated by macro economic, political and social realities. Trained as a qualitative methodologist, his research addresses the construction of racial identities in the U.S. through exploring the questions of democracy, liberalism, and modernity in the lives of youth. The fundamental question Dr. Ali is concerned with is how young people from historically marginalized communities come to make sense of urban life in the U.S., and how they find meaning in their lives through understanding the manifestations of political and cultural ideologies in daily action. Dr. Ali was on sabbatical during the 2021 calendar year. This year, Dr. Ali published two journal articles, and book chapter. He has given multiples academic conference talks at AERA as well as given conference talks at AAA (American Anthropological Association) and the Critical Race Studies in Education Association, as well as served as plenary speaker at the International Conference on Learning Sciences. He has delivered multiple invited lectures, and gave two book talk in his co-edited volume, Critical Research in Education: Methodologies of Praxis and Care (with Teresa McCarty). Dr. Ali has been an engaged mentor this year, while on sabbatical. He continued service on multiple dissertation committees and continued his work with multiple graduate students in developing their publications. Dr. Ali continues to mentor and serve on dissertation committees of over eight doctoral students at GSEHD, chairing five of them, while he was on sabbadical. Finally, Dr. Ali has been actively involved in university and broader community service work. Dr. Ali serves on the steering committee of the GW Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES). The steering committee advises the director on pending degree program changes, institutional priorities, development activities, budgetary priorities, along other issues. In addition to this work for GW, Dr. Ali has also served as a community resource. This year he worked with Muslim Justice League (MJL), a civil rights organization serving Muslim communities across this United States. He served as pro-bono qualitative research consultant for MJL in helping them develop a study of surveillance and policing of Muslim youth.