Born in Jordan, Ruwa Romman moved to Georgia with her family shortly before terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Romman was just 8 years old, and as a Muslim, experienced incessant bullying from peers, teachers and even close friends.
“I remember trying so hard to get people to just see me as a person,” Romman recalled in an interview with CNN. “I stubbornly ignored the reality in front of me that my community was being systematically targeted from airports to universities to mosques,” she said.
Years of bullying and harassment motivated Romman to further her education and advocate for Muslims living in the United States. After graduating from Oglethorpe University in Georgia, where she served as president of the Student Government Association, Romman began her career as a consultant at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. She later served as the communications director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Georgia Chapter, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and devoted her spare time to local organizing with Georgia Muslim Voter Project.
From the McCourt School to Georgia’s House of Representatives
In 2017, Romman moved to Washington, DC, to earn a master’s degree in public policy at the McCourt School. As a graduate student, she served as the McCourt Student Association president and a co-chair of the student advisory board at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics).
McCourt School Professor Sheila Foster remembers Romman as “a terrific interlocutor who consistently interjected thoughtful and critical analysis on a range of topics in class.”
“Ruwa running for office and her win do not surprise me,” said Foster. “I always knew she would make a tremendous impact in her career.”
Following her time at Georgetown, Romman returned to Georgia to advance her career as a policy analyst and political organizer. In 2020, she co-founded the Georgia Volunteer Hub which trained thousands of volunteers to support the Georgia Senate Runoff. Romman and her team now support ongoing efforts to bolster field teams and increase turnout in the forthcoming runoff election between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker.