Fatimazohra Hajji

Fatimazohra Hajji, known as Fifa, grew up in Morocco and is joining the Internet Institute at the University of Oxford to pursue an MSc in Social Data Science as a Mastercard Foundation Scholar and a member of Christ Church.

She studied Political Science at NYU Abu Dhabi, graduating summa cum laude. Along the way, she worked as a research assistant studying military service and national identity, interned at Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at an NGO in London, and was a Rhodes Scholarship finalist for the UAE. She also participated in CNN Academy and, in high school, spent a year in the United States as a Moroccan youth ambassador through a State Department exchange programme.

What connects much of her experience is an interest in taking something complicated, technical, or unfamiliar and making it clear to people who need to understand it. That has shown up in different forms, including writing policy summaries, creating a podcast, and explaining Moroccan politics to Americans who had never thought much about North Africa.

At Oxford, Fatimazohra hopes to become fluent in the technical side of data science without losing the storytelling instinct that brought her here. She is eager to bring a Moroccan and African lens to a field that does not always have enough of one, and looks forward to being in a place that will push her to grow.