Rashad Hussain:
Hussain was born in Wyoming and was raised in Plano, Texas, the son of Indian-born U.S. citizens. His father, Mohammad Hussain, is a retired mining engineer from Bihar. His mother Ruqaiya and his older sister, Lubna are medical doctors, and his younger brother, Saad, is a medical student.[3]
Hussain is a graduate of Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas. While at Greenhill, Hussain was a member of the school's nationally recognized policy-debate team, partnering with Josh Goldberg to win the Texas state debate championship and a number of national competitions.[4]
Hussain completed a bachelor’s degree in two years, in both philosophy and political science, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. His philosophy thesis was titled "Assessing the Theistic Implications of Big Bang Cosmological Theory."[5] He holds a Masters degree in Arabic & Islamic Studies from Harvard University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. At Yale, he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.[6]
After college, but before entering law school, he worked as a legislative aide for the House Judiciary Committee, where he reviewed the USA Patriot Act and other bills.[5] He was a 2003 Fellow of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.[7]
In August 2008, while working as a law clerk for Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Hussain co-authored a paper, "Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy" for the Brookings Institution, that advocates the use of Islam in countering terrorist ideology.[8]
As envoy, Hussain has sought to expand partnerships between the U.S. and the Muslim world and has been outspoken on the need to combat terrorism, stating in a speech to Muslim Foreign Ministers, "It is our duty to eradicate this ideology completely and blaming the foreign policy of any country is not the answer. No policy grievance justifies the slaughter of innocent people