NYC’s new first lady Rama Duwaji got her start at VCU

Sarah Hagen, Managing Editor

Molly Manning, News Editor

Andrew Kerley, Executive Editor

As Virginia elected their next governor on Nov. 4, New Yorkers chose Zohran Mamdani to become their next mayor. His wife, Rama Duwaji, is a Syrian illustrator, animator, ceramist — and she studied at VCUarts before she found unexpected fame.

Duwaji was born in Texas and moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates when she was nine years old. She attended VCUarts’ Qatar for a year before transferring to Richmond where she graduated with a communication arts degree in 2019.

In May 2025, Mamdani shared an Instagram post that read “Rama isn’t just my wife, she’s an incredible artist who deserves to be known on her own terms.”

The 28-year-old, who now has over one million followers on Instagram, has become known for her inked-out portraiture that captures sisterhood and tells stories of freedom and justice in the Arab world. Much of her art has highlighted the ongoing Genocide in Gaza.

It was during Duwaji’s third year at VCU when she made the switch to her signature, animated style of portraiture after her father, a computer engineer, told her to “get with the times,” she said on an episode of the Amad Show podcast in 2020. 

“Once I got introduced to digital art, I basically wanted to translate that visual language of ink on paper into a more accessible kind of form of art,” Duwaji said on the podcast.

Duwaji had good things to say about her time in Richmond. She loved all of her classes, except for “COAR 307: The Face” — a grueling elective all about drawing portraits. She said it was hard to get into to begin with, and ended up being the “worst class possible.”

“If you do enough self portraits it will really mess with your head, because at the end I did not know what I looked like,” Duwaji said. “I looked different every single one and you really have to study your own face. And you get into this existential crisis of like ‘what do I look like to other people?’”

Like many VCUarts students, Duwaji held an exhibition at The Anderson Gallery titled “More than.”

Kelly Alder, a VCUarts adjunct instructor, taught Duwaji in two classes during her time at VCU  — comics and graphic novels, as well as senior portfolio. Duwaji was a quiet, focused student who kept to herself but still worked very hard, Alder said.

Duwaji was already a developed artist when she came to VCU, as her style in college is very similar to her style today, Alder said. 

“I think that she really, she already had a very confident visual voice,” Alder said. “She was just one of those students who, she knew what she wanted to do, she knew what she wanted to say. And I just kind of left her alone and let her do her work.” 

Her work centered around social justice causes and the ongoing genocide in Gaza includes illustrations of objects Palestinians left in their homes when they fled for an article, and an animation urging for an end to the genocide. 

“I’m seriously impressed with what she’s accomplished,” Alder said. “And it was slightly surreal, the first time I saw on television with Mamdani and her standing beside him, and I was just thinking, ‘Is that Rama?’”

Dalal Alghaithi is a fourth-year, international communication arts student. She is from Saudi Arabia, and her mother’s side is from Palestine.

Alghaithi was not surprised to find out Duwaji went to VCU given its large community of students from the Gulf region. She said she was proud to see Duwaji’s success, especially with creating art about Palestine.

“I’m just glad to see that somebody is in the spotlight the way she is, and she’s very outspoken in a very, I would almost say radical, way,” Alghaithi said. “She’s not holding back at all.”