Bio
Nazanin Ash is the vice president of policy and advocacy at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), overseeing the organization’s global policy and advocacy efforts. Before joining the IRC, she was a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, where she focused on aid effectiveness and political and economic reform in the Middle East. Previously, she served as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US Department of State, leading the US government’s Middle East Partnership Initiative. Her US government experience also includes serving as a member of the Secretary of State’s policy-planning staff and roles as chief of staff to the first director of Foreign Assistance, administrator of the US Agency for International Development and White House fellow. Nazanin also worked for ActionAid Kenya, one of the largest rights-based non-governmental organizations in Kenya. She holds an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in political science from Bryn Mawr College.