She studied Psychology at The American University in Beirut and did her Masters in Print Journalism at Columbia University. She was part of The New York Times team in Beirut covering the crisis in Syria and then moved to Dubai where she worked as an editor in Yahoo!. She’s passionate about narrative writing and storytelling in Arabic, and writes for independent media platforms in the Middle East. She's a lecturer at the American University in Dubai. Hala heads the Karam Journalism Program which teaches displaced Syrian teens basic newswriting skills and the ethics of journalism to support talented writers and help them become selective, critical, selective and engaged readers and news consumers.