Maryam Ishani is a specialist on the impact of armed conflict on civilians. She has worked at the United Nations in monitoring and reporting for the Security Council on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. She has also taught International Humanitarian Affairs at Columbia University and has conducted field research in emergency zones, most recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Colombia.

Currently, she is the director of The Journalist Connection, an on-line news service reporting from areas of conflict, and is writing a book about non-combatants caught between national militaries and irregular armed groups.