Helal Khan
Helal Mohammed Khan is an Associate Teaching Professor of Justice and Peace Studies at Georgetown University.
Helal Mohammed Khan is an Associate Teaching Professor of Justice and Peace Studies at Georgetown University. His research explores identity and hope, space and placemaking, and the dynamics of cooperation and well-being. Helal’s teaching is shaped by the lived experiences of diasporas in the West and his professional experiences across South Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States. Before entering academia, Helal served in the Bangladesh Army, where he taught at the Infantry School and held a senior staff position at the border forces' headquarters. He also participated in a UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Helal earned his PhD in Peace Studies and Anthropology from the University of Notre Dame, where he held a Presidential Fellowship at the Kroc Institute, a Doctoral Student Affiliation at the Kellogg Institute, and a Justice Fellowship at the Center for Social Concerns. He received a Chevening Scholarship from the UK Government and a Master Mind Scholarship from the Government of Flanders, Belgium, to support his graduate studies. Helal's doctoral thesis received the Best Graduate Thesis Award from the Peace & Justice Studies Association (2023-24). In addition to his teaching duties, Helal is currently working on a book project provisionally titled “The Abling Refugees and Regimes of Cooperation: The Burmese Rohingya in the American Midwest.”