Issam Nassar was born in Ramallah, Jordan in 1961. He is associate professor of History at Illinois State University and a research fellow at the Institute of Jerusalem Studies in Jerusalem. A historian of photography and the Middle East, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley, 2006, Bradley University, 2003-2006 and al-Quds University, 1998-2003. Dr. Nassar is associate editor of Jerusalem Quarterly (Arabic: Hawliyat al-Quds?) and author of a number of books and articles, among them Laqatat Mughayirah (Different Snapshots: The History of Early Local Photography in Palestine).