Yusif Salaam Conn is a recent graduate of Zaytuna College, earning his BA in Liberal Arts and Islamic Studies along with a minor in Arabic. During his time as an undergraduate, Yusif also pursued a premedicine program, leading to the equivalent of an AS in Biology, an AS in Chemistry, and a CA in Biotechnology.

Since graduating, Yusif has served as a writer for Tayba Foundation’s upcoming Essentials Curriculum, as well as other Islamic education content positions at various organizations. Yusif also interns at Stanford’s Muslim Mental Health and Islamic Psychology Lab. His research at the lab has focused on historical accounts of Islamic Psychology and its modern application.

During his time at Zaytuna, Yusif studied several additional texts to the curriculum including a year of advanced Arabic grammar. His senior thesis, titled “Adam, the Father of Mankind: Exegetical Insights into the Purpose of Man,” synthesized the positions of several classical Sunni exegetes in an attempt to portray the essential difference in the Islamic concept of purpose between that espoused in modern psychological literature.

Today, Yusif continues to pursue both his Islamic and academic education. After general encouragement from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, he hopes to continue to use the knowledge he gained at Zaytuna to instruct children and young men in the foundations of our Islam.