Sarah Arkin is the Policy Director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic staff, where she also covers the Middle East and North Africa. Previously, she was Foreign Policy Advisor to U.S. Senator Bob Menendez. Prior to that she was U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Senior Policy Advisor, covering foreign policy and associate staff of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee. Previously, Sarah served in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, covering a range of issues including human rights, religious freedom and women's rights. Sarah worked as a research assistant at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University and the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University and received a Boren National Security Education Program Fellowship in Cairo in 2012 studying Arab and researching the effectiveness of civic education initiatives in post-Mubarak Egypt
Before all that, she worked as a journalist and photojournalist, winning a Virginia Press Association Breaking News Award in 2009. She has lived in Israel, Kenya, and Uganda. She has a B.A. in International Relations and Spanish from Tufts University and an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University.
At the Institute she was a wonderful member of the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program: Religion, Ethnicity, and Nationalism.
She was one of the talented founders of EXPOSURE, our Institute project for documentary studies dedicated to the advancement of human rights.