Maaria Mozaffar
Breaks Echo Chambers

Maaria Mozaffar is an attorney, policy drafter, mediator, author and speaker. A fierce advocate for equity and human rights, Maaria has dedicated her career to crafting legislation and leading conversations that challenge systemic inequality and uplift the dignity of all people.

Her groundbreaking legislative work focuses on various issue areas, including social services, education, healthcare, criminal justice reform and women's empowerment. Maaria has crafted over a dozen legislations that have successfully become law and were replicated around the nation. She has also led policy initiatives for various community organizations with a focus on tackling dehumanization, including crafting the Wadee Resolution, which was passed by the U.S. Senate, recognizing the 2023 murder of 6-year old Wadee Alfayoumi, a Palestinian-American Muslim boy in Illinois, as a hate crime.

Maaria holds a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Illinois. In 2019, she was appointed to the Illinois Council on Women and Girls, where she co-chairs the Leadership and Inclusion Committee. Her committee introduced the first Illinois Girls Lead mentoring program. Maaria's passion for creating pathways for people to realize their full potential inspired her book, More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World. Maaria has been profiled in Crain's Chicago, Chicago Parent, the Illinois State Bar Journal, and as a "Four Star Chicagoan" by WGN. She's also featured in the PBS Documentary The Great Muslim American Road Trip as one of twenty changemakers in the U.S. In addition, her writings on dehumanization and policy have been published in national and global publications.

Maaria is also passionate about breaking people out of their echo chambers, and thinking critically about the ways social media has been used to perpetuate divisions in our society. With her podcast A Way Forward, Maaria engages in conversations with an array of thought leaders, artists, subject matter experts and more, to help us see the possibilities for personal and social change where we feel that there are none.