Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons

Assistant Professor of Religion
University of Florida

Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida, where her primary academic focus is on Islamic law and its impact on contemporary Muslim women.  The areas of focus for her teaching at this time include Islam, Women, Religion, and Society; Women and Islam; African American Religious Traditions; and Race, Religion, and Rebellion.  Dr. Simmons spent two years living and conducting dissertation research in the Middle East countries of Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria.

Dr. Simmons has a long history in the area of civil rights, human rights, and peace work.  For 23 years, she was on the staff of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker peace, justice, human rights, and international development organization headquartered in Philadelphia.

During her early adult years as a college student and, thereafter, Dr. Simmons was active with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and spent seven years working full-time on voter registration and desegregation activities in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.