Tahara Akmal

The first Muslim woman in America certified to train chaplains.

Tahara Akmal is the first Muslim woman in the United States to be certified as a CPE Educator by ACPE. She manages the Clinical Pastoral Education program at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Before that she was an ACPE Certified Educator and chaplain at Reading Hospital School of Health Sciences.

She trained where the work is hardest: a chaplain internship at The Ohio State University Medical Center, a residency at UCLA Health, then an advanced residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies from Claremont School of Theology, concentrating in Islamic Studies and in spiritual care. She is now a PhD candidate at Alvernia University, researching chaplaincy and leadership.

Hospital chaplaincy is where spiritual care meets clinical care at its hardest moments: in the room, on the worst day, alongside a medical team. That is precisely the seam Zaha is built on, and there are very few people in American Muslim life who have spent a career in it.