Ayat Mneina is a Canadian-Libyan researcher, reporter and analyst specializing in women’s rights, digital media, policy and youth movements in the Middle East and North Africa.

She holds a Master of Science in Public Health with a specialty in Health Economics from the University of London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Manitoba. Ayat has built a career marked by advocacy, research, and consultancy and has included roles ranging from research associate at a vaccine and drug evaluation centre, to campaign manager for a provincial leadership race in Canada, to developing diversity and inclusion training courses for the Canadian federal government. She is an alumni of the Near East South Asia Centre for Strategic Studies where she completed the Next Generation Seminar (2014) at the National Defense University (Washington, DC),  the Professional Development for Independent Journalism in Libya training from the Rory Peck Trust, the Libyan Institute for Advanced Study and UNDEF (2015),  the Women in Conflict 1325 Fellowship Program at Beyond Borders Scotland (2017), and the Leadership Forum for Strategic Impact at Yale University and the Fundacion Mujeres Por Africa (2019).

Her most recent project includes being the story curator and project manager of the Middle East and North Africa region of the Stories of Girls’ Resistance project. This global project is the largest ever collection of oral and narrative history of adolescent girls’ activism, offering a powerful window into girls’ lives and their resistance.

In her capacity as founder of ShababLibya, the Libyan Youth Movement, Ayat played a crucial role in raising awareness of the Libyan uprising, amplifying verified information using sources on the ground, leveraging the strengths of social media tools, and regularly reporting developments to international media.

Ayat's expertise and insights have led her to speak at prestigious forums and universities and institutions including the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations, the Middle East Institute, MIT, AWID Forum, Women Deliver and Yale University. Her commentary and expertise also appears on  media platforms including Al Jazeera, BBC, the Guardian, the Globe and Mail and the CBC.

She is a member of Karama, a regional network across the Middle East and North Africa which aims to end all forms of violence against women.