Nadia Farra

Next Generation National Security Fellow, 2018

Syria Desk Officer, U.S. Department of State

  • Press: comms@cnas.org

Nadia Farra is a Syria Desk Officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. State Department. For over three years she has advised U.S. government leaders on congressional relations, messaging, nonproliferation, sanctions, and counter-terrorism issues, including the campaign to Defeat ISIS, in regards to Syria. As part of this role, she helps shape, implement, and monitor U.S. efforts to de-escalate violence in Syria and report on chemical weapons use in Syria, which led her to assignments at the U.S. Mission in Geneva, Switzerland and Embassies Amman and Ankara. During her assignment to the Syria Transition Assistance and Response Team at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, her reporting on the December 2016 Aleppo, Syria, evacuation won her a Superior Honor Award.

Nadia entered the civil service in 2011 as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) at USAID. During her four years at the Agency, she staffed former Administrator Raj Shah in the Executive Secretariat before moving to the Yemen Desk, where she helped organize and execute the evacuation of implementing partners from Sana'a and southern Yemen. Nadia Farra earned 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.