Yara Zidan is an instructor in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition and the Department of English Language Instruction at The American University in Cairo. She holds a doctor of philosophy and a master of arts in applied linguistics from Cairo University, with doctoral research in forensic linguistics. Zidan was a Fulbright Junior Faculty Development Program scholar in TESOL and linguistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. With extensive experience in higher education, she has taught English language, academic writing, applied linguistics and interdisciplinary courses.

At AUC, she teaches academic literacy and writing as well as Core Curriculum courses within the Egypt Studies Focus, incorporating experiential learning that engages students with Egypt's history, heritage, identity and contemporary cultural landscape. Her work also includes curriculum development and teacher education; she designed English language curricula for the USAID Scholars Activity at AUC and contributed as a subject matter expert to the ATHAR I and ATHAR II projects, supporting the development of pedagogical content and resources for educators.