Bio
Rita Stephan is the Senior Advisor to the Director of the Office of Management Strategy and Solutions at the Department of State. Previously, she served as the Regional Coordinator for Religious and Ethnic Minorities at USAID. From 2016 to 2020, she served as the Director of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) in the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau's Office of Assistance Coordination where she pioneered many gender initiatives in the MENA region. In 2010, she was a Survey Statistician at the Population Division of the U.S. Census Bureau where she initiated the campaign for the MENA checkbox. Stephan holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, a B.A. in International Affairs and Jewish Studies and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University. She is among the first Arab Americans to become a Senior Executive in the State Department. She is the Vice President of the International Career Advancement Program (ICAP) Fellows Association, the Vice President of Americans By Choice, a 2021 International Women's Forum fellow, and a board member of the Arab Americans in Foreign Affairs Agencies (AAIFAA) and Executive Women at State. She is the editor and coeditor of three books on gender in the Middle East and the author of numerous articles on race and ethnicity in the Census, Arab Americans, and gender activism in the Middle East.