Born in Syria and raised in Huntington, Shora graduated from Marshall in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast joumalism. After completing law school, he became a legal advisor for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, for which he helped build diverse coalitions in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and served as an expert on counterradicalization, religion and culture, and post-9/11 challenges and opportunities. He also founded the organization’s Law Enforcement Outreach Program to help enhance communication between law enforcement and the Arab-American and Muslim communities.
In 2010, Shora was appointed as a senior advisor to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), where he worked on matters related to civil rights. He provided expert analysis to agency leaders and handled civil rights and liberties complaints. He also developed assessments of the agency’s training programs and made recommendations to improve them, and coordinated an annual multicultural conference.
Shora has since worked in various senior advisor roles for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he serves as an in-house resource on issues related to violent extremism, radicalization and terrorism. He trains frontline field operations officers and border patrol agents in communication skills and provides on-the-spot Arabic translation and cultural explanations. He also assists in trust-building with communities often targeted for violent radicalization, and has been an instructor for the National Targeting Center’s Tactical Terrorism Response Team.
He has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, CBS, ABC, Al Jazeera and National Public Radio, and has been interviewed by The Washington Post and the Associated Press, among others. In 2011, he received the “American by Choice Award” from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in 2007 and 2009, he received the “FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award.”
In 2008, Shora wrote and published The Arab-American Handbook: A Guide to the Arab, Arab-American & Muslim Worlds. The handbook is widely used by law enforcement, corporations and nonprofits to help employees and others understand the Arab and Muslim cultures.
The morning commencement ceremony will take place at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 5, in the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in downtown Huntington.