Elsa Belmont Flores’s work at Brown’s Center for Language Studies includes teaching beginning through advanced-level courses in Modern Standard Arabic and Beginning Levantine Colloquial Arabic. She also serves as a mentor to Fulbright and Graduate Teaching Assistants in beginning Arabic courses. Prior to joining Brown University in 2018, Elsa served as Assistant Director and Resident Coordinator for the Middlebury School in Jordan where she worked collaboratively with faculty and community members to achieve the program’s goals for curricular development and student immersion. Elsa’s pedagogical interests include youth culture in the Arab World, media and film, and the use of technology in the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language.

Miled Faiza is a poet and translator. He is the author of two books of poetry: ʾAsābiʿ al-naḥḥāt (2019) and Baqāya al-bayt alladhī dakhalnāhu marrah wāḥidah (2004). He has translated two novels from English to Arabic: Autumn (al-Kharīf, 2017), and Winter (al-Shitāʾ, 2019), both by Ali Smith; from Arabic to English, he co-translated the novel al-Talyānī (The Italian, 2021), by Shukri Mabkhout. He also published many translations of poetry and short stories. Prior to coming to Brown in 2011, Miled taught Arabic at Michigan State University, University of Virginia, and Middlebury College.