Bshara Nassar
Founding Director
Mr. Nassar earned his undergraduate degree from Bethlehem University (Palestine) in Information Systems and Business Administration in 2010. He earned his Master’s Degree in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University (Harrisonburg, VA) in 2014. As the fourth generation of the Nassar family, Mr. Nassar was deeply involved in his family’s educational farm, Tent of Nations, in Palestine, including education, communication and social media. In 2014, he founded the Nakba Museum Project, where he developed the concept, worked with artists, prepared artwork and exhibits, negotiated exhibit space, coordinated the setup of the exhibits in locations across the country, and raised funds.
Julia Ganson
Program Manager, Middle East & North Africa
Executive Education Programs
Maxwell School for Citizenship & Public Affairs of Syracuse University
Dr. Ganson managed international training and fellowship programs for the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) in the Executive Education Office of Syracuse University from 2008 until 2016. The programs included the Leaders for Democracy (LDF) and the Civic Education & Leadership Fellows (CELF) programs. LDF and CELF hosted democratic reformers and academics from 15 MENA countries, including Palestine, for three months of seminars at the Maxwell School and then for professional affiliations in Washington, D.C. Both programs were funded through the Middle East Partnership Initiative of the U.S. Department of State. During the LDF program, she traveled extensively in the Middle East & North Africa and partnered with Lebanese universities for related programs. The LDF and CELF programs now have an extensive network of more than 300 alumni who are civil society leaders in the MENA region.
Before joining Executive Education at the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, she held faculty positions in departments of sociology at several American liberal arts colleges. She has worked in the field of educational evaluation as a Review Officer for the New Zealand National Government and in program evaluation for NGOs in the U.S. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for teaching and research at Birzeit University, in the Muwatin Institute for Democracy & Human Rights, in Ramallah for 2017-18.
Art Hunt
Principal, RWS Advisers
Mr. Hunt, with his business and life partner Mary Hunt, founded RWS-Advisors, a not-for profit consultancy specializing in not-for-profits with practice areas in strategic and financial planning; process improvements; financial and donor management systems; executive development and evaluations; and responsive website development and design.
Mr. Hunt retired from Yale University in 2014 after 24 years leading change management, process improvements and software implementations. Prior to Yale, Mr. Hunt held COO and CFO, accounting and production management positions in several small businesses.
Mr. Hunt serves as Deputy Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and is active in a variety of social justice causes.
Jason Bajalia
Importer-Wholesaler-Imbiber, Terra Sancta Trading LLC/Cremisan Cellars USA
Huda Asfour, PhD
Performer, Composer, Engineer George Washington University,
Co-founder of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival
Dr. Asfour is a performer, composer and engineer who has worked, studied, and collaborated with artists in Tunisia, Gaza, Ramallah, Egypt, Lebanon and the United States. Her debut release ‘Mars, Back and For th’ i s a progressive experimentation and reinterpretation of familiar Arabic styles alongside a compelling push for the inter-stellar home, self, and futurism. Mars, Dr. Asfour writes, “was my search for home and for identity. A trip to a world without borders. Undefined by labels and boundaries. The god of war, that shaped my early years, from the mountains of Lebanon where I was born during the Israeli invasion, to the early years of the second intifada (uprising) in Ramallah.”
Since the release of Mars, Dr. Asfour has published a 15 min original film score for the short film ‘Blue Dive’ by Egyptian film maker Mostafa Youssef. In collaboration with Sri Lankan American poet, Gowri Koneswaran, together they have also premiered the multimedia performance ‘Yasmneen’ featuring flamenco dancer Wathec Sleiman and Canadian tap dancer Melissa Frakman, in Washington DC. More recently she also recorded an experimental album
with the group DUNUM.
Dr. Asfour is also a co-founder of the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival, a volunteer run 501C3 organization.
In addition to her work as a musician, Dr. Asfour also works in the biomedical engineering field as a postdoc currently at the George Washington University.