Ingrid Mattson Biography : The current president of the Islamic Society of North America ( ISNA)

Ingrid Mattson Biography

Ingrid Mattson, Ph.D. is a Canadian Muslim revert professor and activist and the current president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Ingrid Mattson was born and raised in Ontario, Canada and studied philosophy and fine arts at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. She was actually raised as a Catholic, she ultimately abandoned religion ‘for good’ during her teenage years, but embraced Islam at the end of her undergraduate studies.

She then travelled to Pakistan where she worked with Afghan refugees for a year. She earned her Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of Chicago in 1999. She went on to be very active in educating Canadian Muslims to become active participants in Canadian society at large. She is now Director of Islamic Chaplaincy and Professor at the Macdonald Center for Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, which is the first Islamic chaplaincy program in the United States.

In 2001 she was elected Vice-President of ISNA and in 2006 she was elected President of the organization. She has guest lectured at such institutions as the US Naval Academy. Dr. Mattson is the first female to lead the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).