Maria Njaim holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Aberdeen, UK. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at Notre Dame University, where she also heads the Department of Community Service and Awareness.
Dr. Njaim has extensive experience working with Lebanese and international NGOs, and she currently serves as Managing Partner at HAMEC Consultancy, specializing in proposal writing, needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation, gap analysis, and baseline studies. She has served as a political consultant for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Syria & Iraq Office and as an external consultant for monitoring and evaluation of working groups on refugees.
She has coordinated several national conferences on human security and leads numerous community-based projects in collaboration with local municipalities and NGOs, focusing on urban management, food safety, water testing, and social welfare. Through these initiatives, she promotes student engagement and civic responsibility.
Dr. Njaim is also a trainer in USAID programs, providing capacity-building sessions for NGOs in monitoring and evaluation. Her work extends to charity initiatives supporting the elderly, children, and vulnerable populations. She has several academic publications and has contributed to policy discussions on national defense strategy.