Hagai El-Ad, an Israeli human rights activist, is the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the country's leading human rights organization. Prior to joining ACRI, El-Ad served as the first executive director of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance (JOH), the Holy City's LGBT community and advocacy center. Born in Haifa, El-Ad was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. He completed his B.Sc. (Special Honors Program) and M.Sc. (Astrophysics) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. El-Ad has published numerous articles on Arab-Jewish relations and equality in Israel, LGBT rights, and more. Most recently he contributed a chapter to the book, Where, Here: Language, Identity, Place.