Patricia Karam

Patricia Karam is currently Senior Policy Advisor on Iran at Freedom House, where she plays a leading role in crafting its policy agenda and advocacy strategy for promoting democracy and human rights in Iran. She also serves as Senior Advisor to the American Task For Lebanon, where she supports strategic/policy engagement and business development, and is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington, DC. She was, most recently, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Director at the International Republican Institute (IRI), where she oversaw a multi-million-dollar portfolio of programs focused on citizen-responsive governance, political party development, legislative strengthening, and civil society strengthening in the Levant, Afghanistan, the Gulf, and North Africa. Prior to that, as MENA director at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Karam was responsible for research, advocacy, grant-making, and technical assistance projects aimed at improving natural resource governance, administered through country offices she established in Lebanon, Iraq, Tunisia, and Libya. Before that, as deputy director at the International Center for Transitional Justice, Karam oversaw educational transitional justice programs in three languages in Spain, Morocco, and South Africa, and spearheaded the expansion of a Documentation Affinity Group, a global network of action-oriented grassroots human rights documentation-focused groups.