Residence United States Name Oula Alrifai Television The First Step | Home town Damascus, Syria Nationality Syrian | |
Born September 12, 1986 (age 37) ( 1986-09-12 ) Alma mater University of Maryland, College Park Website | ||
Oula Alnashar Alrifai (Arabic علا الرفاعي; born September 12, 1986) is a Syrian democracy youth activist, author, analyst, and political asylee, from Damascus, Syria currently (as of 2017) living in the United States due to death threats to her family in 2005 from Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Oula is a co-founder and executive director of SANAD Syria. She was featured with her family in The Washington Post newspaper on an account of their human rights activism and support for the Syrian Revolution in 2011. Alrifai is Ammar Abdulhamid's step-daughter. Alrifai with her parents (Ammar Abdulhamid and Khawla Yusuf) and her brother Mouhanad sought political asylum in Washington, DC, in 2005. She worked as a researcher on the topic of Syria for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Alrifai has been published in the most prestigious American magazines including Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, The Hill, and CTC Sentinel. Her research and policy analysis focus on Syria and the Middle East. Oula became a U.S. citizen in 2016.
Education
In December 2011 Alrifai received her B.A. from the University of Maryland in Government and Politics and Middle East studies, where she was awarded the full-tuition Academic Excellence Scholarship until her graduation. Alrifai is a member of the National Political Science Honor Society (Pi Sigma Alpha) and a member of the International Honor Society (Phi Theta Kappa). Alrifai will resume her education by earning a Master's degree at Harvard University in 2017.