Mariya Taher has worked in the anti-gender violence field in the areas of research, policy, program development, and direct service. In 2015, she cofounded Sahiyo to empower Asian communities to end female genital cutting. The Manhattan Young Democrats honored her as a 2017 Engendering Progress honoree. In 2017, Mariya also graduated with her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, where she received the 2014 Graduate School of Arts & Social Sciences Dean’s Merit Scholarship and the 2016 Lesley University Graduate Student Leadership Award. She is a prolific writer in fiction and nonfiction with essays and short stories appearing on NPR, Ms. Magazine, Huffington Post, The Fair Observer, Brown Girl Magazine, The Express Tribune, The San Francisco Examiner, The Flexible Persona, Cecile’s Writer’s Magazine, and more. She is also an avid chocolate taster, runner, and beginning climber.
