Katherine Sherif

Katherine Sherif is a 61-year old physician in Philadelphia who was born in Egypt, and raised in New Jersey. She believes growing up as “an outsider” taught her empathy; her mother was active in the women’s liberation movement, and Katherine spent time during her residency working for human rights agencies in Cairo. She wanted to relay the unusual, and surprising, experience she describes in her essay. “I did not expect to be comforted by religious rituals,” Katherine says. She is pictured here with her late father Fawzy Gamal el Din Sherif.