Rana Abdelhamid (@ranaabdelhamid) was born on May 6, 1993 in Queens, New York to Egyptian-American parents. Growing up one of four children, she studied karate, eventually becoming a shotokan karate martial artist and holding a black belt in Tai Chi karate. Rana attended Middlebury College as a Posse Foundation Scholar for her Bachelors Degree, where she studied international politics and economics. Along with her classmates, she helped to organize a local chapter of Amnesty International USA. Upon completing her BA, Rana started a graduate program at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, funded by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship. Rana has taken on a number of projects to help her community and her fellow Muslim women. In early 2010, she lounged her first class for Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment, a self-defense class created especially for Muslim women, an idea born after she was attacked by a man who tried to remove her headscarf. WISE, now known as Malikah, expanded to multiple cities and countries, including Spain, Ireland, and Edinburgh, incorporating a summer camp in NYC along the way. The creation of WISE was a part of Rana’s healing process and a way for Rana to participate in the creation of a global collective for women to take back power in their communities. On April 14 2021, Rana announced her candidacy for the 2022 House of Representatives election in New York’s 12th Congressional District (@ranaforcongress). A member of the Democratic Socialists of America (@usdemsocialists ), Rana has been endorsed by the group Justice Democrats and NYC Council Member Brad Lander.