Affiliate Consultant

Oula Alrifai is a foreign policy and public policy professional with more than a decade of experience spanning national security, international affairs, civil society, and advocacy. 

From 2021 to 2026, she served as Assistant Vice President at the National Immigration Forum, where she worked alongside executive leadership to advance strategic campaigns, oversee complex programming, and manage teams and partnerships. In this role, she collaborated with senior leaders across Congress, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, national security and law enforcement communities, government agencies, think tanks, consulting firms, and civil society organizations.

Her professional foundation is rooted in rigorous policy research, data collection, strategic advocacy, and stakeholder engagement. Across her work with leading research institutions and advocacy organizations, Alrifai has focused on advancing U.S. public and foreign policy priorities while developing initiatives designed to deliver measurable impact. From 2019-2021, Alrifai was a Senior Fellow in the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Program on Arab Politics working on critical Middle East-related topics on the U.S. foreign policy agenda including on misinformation and disinformation narratives in the region.

A longtime advocate for forcefully displaced populations, particularly women and children, she has led both field-based and digital campaigns highlighting the experiences of Syrian refugees and expanding educational opportunities for displaced children. She is the executive producer of the award-winning documentary Tomorrow’s Children, which examines the experiences of Syrian refugee children forced into child labor in Turkey. The documentary was featured in the Harvard Gazette in 2017 and was subsequently available on Amazon Prime.

Alrifai holds a Master of Arts in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Politics, along with a minor in Middle East Studies, from the University of Maryland, College Park. Alrifai speaks Arabic, Persian, and Spanish.