[2][better source needed] She subsequently received her MBA from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.

Mogahed was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about U.S. engagement with Muslim communities and was a significant contributor to the Homeland Security Advisory Council's Countering Violent Extremism Working Group.

[3][4] Prior to joining Gallup, Mogahed was the founder and director of a cross-cultural consulting practice in the United States, which offered workshops, training programs, and one-to-one coaching on diversity and cultural understanding.

Mogahed's clients included school districts, colleges and universities, law enforcement agencies, community service organizations, and local and national media outlets.

Mogahed later stated that she would not have agreed to the interview had she known about the program's affiliation and that she believed Ismail had misled her team "to score propaganda points for an ideological movement".

[12] Mogahed compares this with public attitudes to terrorist attacks committed by white Christians, noting that in these cases, "we don't suspect other people who share their faith and ethnicity of condoning them".

[13][14][15] In 2020, in the context of violent demonstrations held in some Muslim countries against France for refusing to ban cartoons depicting the prophet of Islam, Mogahed asserted that such caricatures were “the equivalent of the N-word” or “blackface”, and were likewise “racial slurs” targeting “a vulnerable [...] and demonized community”.