Farah Pandith

Farah Pandith is Special Representative to Muslim Communities at the U.S. State Department, a new position created for her by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Pandith graduated from the Fletcher School in 1995 and was vice president of international business at ML Strategies in Boston from 1997-2003 before working for USAID as chief of staff of the Bureau for Asia and the Near East. Pandith joined the National Security Council as the director for Middle East Regional Initiatives from 2004-2007 under Elliott Abrams.

Pandith was born in Srinagar in the Indian side of Kashmir and raised in Massachusetts.

Activities

Farah Pandith was heavily involved in these projects:

• Generation Change - founded by Farah Pandith and Hillary Clinton
• Women in Public Service project - Founded by Hillary Clinton in 2011 and hosted at the Woodrow Wilson Center
• 50x50 Movement - a project of the Woodrow Wilson Center
• Women and Girls Lead
• Viral Peace - hosted at the Berkman Center
• Hours Against Hate
• Institute for Strategic Dialogue - head of strategy
• Counter Extremism Project

Affiliations

Pandith is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Homeland Security Advisory Council, Future of Diplomacy Project, Risk and Network Exchange (RANE), and Counter Extremism Project.

Pandith participanted in the March 2006 conference Muslim Communities Participating in Society: A Belgian-U.S. Dialogue where members of the American Muslim Brotherhood met with the Federation of European Muslim Youth Organizations, a financier of Taibah International.

Pandith spoke at the 2008 US-Islamic World Forum on the subject Re-Fortifying Western Muslim Space.

Pandith moderated the December 6, 2013 panel Discourses after the Boston Bombings and the Woolwich Murder - Perceptions of Muslims in the West which was held at Harvard Kennedy School by the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program of the British Council.

Pandith received special thanks from the Muslima project.

Also of note

The Kashmiri American Council of Ghulam Nabi Fai issued a congratulatory press release when Farah Pandith was appointed to the State Department in 2009.