Alexandria Osborne was born in 1956 in Harlem, New York and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. After earning a B.S. in Chemistry from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, Alex accepted a position at a global pharmaceutical company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Michigan brought about many life changes including marriage to a Libyan American and converting to Islam. It’s also the place Alex raised her daughter,  Zubayda with whom she would often travel to Libya. Finding it difficult to say Alex, her in-laws in Libya gave her the name Nur, a name she adopted as her own. It was the beginning of a dynamic, cross-cultural life.

In 2005, Nur earned a MBA in Management from Western Michigan University and later began her studies for a PhD in Management with a specialty in Leadership and Organization Change.

In 2009, she made her first visit to sub-Sahara Africa to begin a six-month fellowship for an international NGO in Tanzania. That same year, her research study conducted at Tripoli Medical Center in Libya was approved, earning her a PhD from Walden University.

During her fellowship, she met her current husband, Saidi, and returned to his homeland in the coastal southern region of Lindi, Tanzania. In 2013, she founded the Lindi Islamic Foundation of Tanzania–LIFT..

She now lives in Tanzania with her husband, their chickens and other farm animals where she enjoys starting off each morning with a good strong cup of Tanzanian coffee.