Wardah Khalid

Khalid is a Foreign Affairs Officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs/Office of Regional Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She was previously a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She led the office’s efforts to reunify unaccompanied Afghan children who came to the U.S. after the withdrawal in 2021 with their family members still in Afghanistan. She was selected as a 2022 Atlantic Council Millennium Fellow. She was previously a Senior Media Advisor on the Rights & Inclusion team at ReThink Media where she worked with Arab, Muslim, and South Asian organizations and activists on media coverage surrounding the 20th anniversary of 9/11. She was previously an Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies Congressional Fellow in the office of Rep. Judy Chu. Khalid was named a 2020 Asian American Pacific Islander National Security & Foreign Policy Next Generation Leader by New America and Diversity in National Security Network. She was previously a Media Relations Manager at Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program. She served on the advocacy team to increase public support for refugees and oppose anti-refugee policies like the travel ban through tools such as press conferences, press releases, advocacy days, and op-eds. She is the Founder and President of Poligon Education Fund, a national non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing American Muslim participation on Capitol Hill, which is working for positive policy change on issues such as civil rights, Islamophobia, and national security by teaching Muslim Americans how to engage their representatives in Congress. She is a Truman National Security Project Security Fellow class of 2019 and was selected as the July 2019 Woman of the Month by Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS). In summer 2017, she was accepted as a Foreign Policy Interrupted fellow, a program dedicated to diversifying voices and opinions in the foreign policy space. After her fellowship she worked as a Middle East Policy Analyst at the Friends Committee on National Legislation Education Fund.