Meet Our Team
Ella Wind, PhD
Director of Research
Ella Wind is the Director of Research at Public Wise, where she has conducted research on topics such as the potential electoral consequences of the war in Gaza, the connection between law enforcement accountability and democracy, and U.S. public opinion on accountability for participation in January 6.
She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University. Prior to joining Public Wise, Ella served as a qualitative research consultant for Start Point NGO, a Syrian women-led grassroots organization that works to advance gender equality in Syria. Some of her other research projects include an investigation of the political drivers of welfare state growth in high-income democracies in European Sociological Review; an analysis of the political fragmentation of the Syrian opposition from 2011 to 2015, published in Beyond the Arab Spring: The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East, and a study of the socio-economic consequences of the Syrian civil war published in Turkish Review.
Ella is also a seasoned organizer, with over 15 years of experience in community organizing in the labor movement, immigrant rights, and international solidarity movements; and as a volunteer for campaigns at the municipal, state, and federal levels in Central Florida and the New York City area.
From 2014 to 2016, Ella served as an elected bargaining committee member and then as the Unit Chair for UAW 2110’s Graduate Student Organizing Committee (GSOC), which won a historic contract at New York University, establishing the first recognized graduate worker union at any private university in the United States. This served as a model for further contract wins by university labor organizations across the country. She was invited to speak, write, and offer advice to other university worker labor organizations on GSOC’s innovative contract and organizing strategy.
Throughout the Syrian refugee crisis and the Trump Muslim travel ban, she organized with Arab uprising solidarity groups and refugee and immigrant rights groups in the New York City area to advocate for the U.S. to accept more Syrian refugees and volunteering in Arabic translation and interpretation to support resettlement efforts for newly arriving refugees and immigrants.
Before that, Ella worked in Tampa, FL at United Voices, which offers local workshops and events on civic engagement for politically underrepresented communities. She helped run GOTV efforts at mosques and other community institutions and served as the program manager developing and running their flagship program, the Capitol Leadership Academy, which offers intensive training in civic engagement, political participation, and community organizing for minority youth in Central Florida, especially from Arab, Muslim, and immigrant communities.
Born and raised in Tampa, Florida, Ella received her B.A. in Economics from Hampshire College and an M.A. in Near East Studies from New York University.