Rassam Culhane was born in Mosul, Iraq, to an Iraqi-Assyrian father and a Lebanese mother.[1] As a child, she and her family moved to the United States. Rassam Culhane studied at Cazenovia College before earning a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in early childhood education from Rockford College.
Rassam Culhane moved to New York City with her husband and worked at Newsweek. She later became a professor at Mercy College and began her doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University.[1]
She often gives lectures on Iraq's history and civilization as a way of embracing her culture and heritage.
She is the chair of the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Mercy College.[1] She was also a teacher at the Damascus University - Faculty of Medicine, where she taught courses on child development, adolescent disorders and health service delivery.[2]
Rassam Culhane met her husband, John Culhane, while attending college. They had two children together, Michael and Thomas. John Culhane died in 2015 at the age of 81.[3]
