Nadia Farra is a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. She is a foreign policy and government affairs leader with over fifteen years of experience in national security. She most recently served as director for human rights at the National Security Council, focusing primarily on the Middle East. Before this, Farra was chief of staff to the special envoy for critical and emerging technology at the US Department of State, where she shaped the development and policy of multiple offices focusing on emerging technology, cyberspace and security, and digital infrastructure and governance. 

Farra also served as special assistant to then Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, covering the Middle East and North Africa, counterterrorism, and cyber and digital policy. Farra served as the senior Syria desk officer from 2015 until 2021, leading a team of six and advising State Department and White House leadership on US policy towards Syria. Farra entered the civil service in 2011 as a Presidential Management fellow at the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense.

Farra has a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on international development from the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University and a bachelor’s degree in international affairs with a minor in Arabic from the University of Georgia.