Abir Ward

About Abir

Born and raised in Monrovia, Liberia to Lebanese parents, Abir Ward, a multinational and multilingual, had lived on three continents before the age of 20. She taught at the Lebanese American University where she started the annual creative writing workshops and poetry competition and at the American University of Beirut (AUB) where she led the editorial work of Pages Apart, a 700-page academic reader used for teaching English.

In 2019, Abir founded 2Rāth, a social justice initiative engaged in the politics of representation. 2Rāth helped create articles on Wikipedia about notable Arab women, and its work has so far garnered over 20 million views. Abir has published numerous articles on justice-oriented pedagogy, and her research has appeared in Elsevier's Women Studies International Forum, TESOL's SRIS, and Computers and Writing Conference Proceedings.Since joining Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program in 2022, Dr. Ward has taught multilingual and international students in first-year writing, public speaking, and courses focused on social and racial justice. She curates TEDxBU and trains the speakers. Since Fall 2024, she has organized Boston University’s first university-wide Celebration of Multilingual Writing at the Howard Thurman Center, bringing together students, faculty, and campus partners to recognize linguistic diversity and student writing across languages, cultures, and disciplines. Dr. Ward’s research examines the relationship between language, identity, power, and knowledge production, with particular attention to linguistic injustice, scientific publishing, and public knowledge. Across her work, she studies how language shapes access to knowledge, how multilingual scholars participate in academic publishing, and how communication practices reflect broader questions of equity, representation, and participation.