Umar Rafi

Umar Rafi’s life has been an accidental journey across countries, cultures and perspectives. Born in Pakistan, he has lived in Pakistan, Iraq, Canada, the United States, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Malaysia. His path has crossed aviation, technology, finance, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship and writing—different experiences that continue to shape his curiosity about people and the world.

His experiences have taken him across borders often defined by conflict and competing narratives. He has formed lifelong friendships with people of different nationalities, religions and backgrounds, and those encounters have shaped a recurring question in his writing: why do compassionate, well-meaning people so often find themselves on opposing sides?

Across fiction and nonfiction, Umar writes from that intersection of lived experience and curiosity—looking at familiar questions from unfamiliar perspectives, with the hope of making it a little harder to hate people and places we have never taken the time to know.

He holds a B.S. in applied mathematics from the United States Air Force Academy, an M.S. in computer science from Wichita State University, a Ph.D. in finance from INCEIF, and an M.S. in machine learning from Georgia Tech.