Staff

Liaison Office (Bethesda, Maryland)

Mahnaz Afkhami, President and CEO, is former Secretary General of the Women's Organization of Iran and Minister for Women's Affairs. She is Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies and serves on advisory boards for a number of national and international organizations. She has over three decades of experience working at the government and non-government levels to advance the rights of women, particularly in the Middle East. She has authored numerous publications, among them Muslim Women and the Politics of Participation (1997), Faith and Freedom: Women's Human Rights in the Muslim World (1995), Women in Exile (1994), and Women and the Law in Iran (1993). Among the training manuals she has co-authored are Claiming Our Rights: A Manual for Women's Human Rights Education in Muslim Societies (1996), Safe and Secure: Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Muslim Societies (1998), and Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women (2001).

Rakhee Goyal, Executive Director, works in close cooperation with WLP’s President and CEO, providing institutional leadership and overseeing the daily operations of the organization. She manages the design and implementation of training programs for women’s leadership and capacity-building in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. An engineer and computer scientist, she was formerly with Sisterhood Is Global Institute where she coordinated human rights education and gender violence projects in South Asia and the Middle East. Her prior experience includes working on gender mainstreaming practices of development organizations at InterAction’s Commission on the Advancement of Women. She is co-producer of Cultural Boundaries & Cyber Spaces: Women’s Voices on Empowerment, Leadership and Technology; Leading to Choices: A Multimedia Curriculum for Leadership Learning series; and Against All Odds: Women Partnering for Change in a Time of Crisis.

Bunmi Morenike Dipo-Salami, Senior Trainer and Co-Coordinator of the International Women’s Democracy Network, is a feminist, gender activist, researcher, and trainer. She was educated at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife and the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague where she obtained a B.A. ED in French and Master of Arts in Development Studies, specializing in Women, Gender and Development respectively. She was Programme Director at BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights from 2006-2007 and worked with the organization in various capacities since 2000. Her areas of interest include gender, women’s human rights, transformative leadership, project management, citizenship rights and capabilities and monitoring and evaluation. A World Bank Scholar and Chevening Fellow, Bunmi is an international gender consultant and a member of several national, regional and international networks as well as on the board of various national organizations.

Lindsey Ellis, Administrative Assistant, provides key administrative and programmatic support for all areas of WLP's work. She received her BA in Development Studies with a concentration on the Middle East and Arabic Language at the University of Arizona. Her senior thesis focused on women, population, and development in Palestine. As a Boren Scholar, Lindsey studied at the American University in Cairo, taught English, and volunteered with a grassroots organization supporting orphans. Prior to joining WLP, Lindsey interned at the Middle East Institute.

Christina Halstead, Program Associate, liaises with WLP partner organizations in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East and helps coordinate the joint programs in these countries. Christina received her M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Maryland. She has conducted original research on trauma and psychosocial support for children in armed conflict in East Africa, specifically in Northern Uganda. Prior to joining WLP, Christina was a research fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, researching education policy reform. She also has four years of experience in conducting quantitative survey research.

Siobhan Hayes, Program Associate, liaises with WLP partner organizations in Central Asia, South East Asia, and the Middle East and helps coordinate the joint programs in these countries. Siobhan received her MA in International Education at The George Washington University, where her research focused on gender, intercultural conflict, and multicultural education. She received her BA in Philosophy at Fordham University and has taught in Thailand and the U.S. Her past work includes serving with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Los Angeles, providing counseling and aiding homeless women and men to gain employment, and providing research assistance on a project investigating women’s health care in the US prison system at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Marion Marquardt, Technology Program Associate, coordinates WLP's ICT empowerment projects. She is responsible for developing training materials and technology tools to facilitate communication and knowledge-building among WLP partners, and to support and strengthen the technology capacity of partner organizations. Marion received her B.Sc and M.Eng. in Computer Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.Phil. in Technology Policy at Cambridge University where she focused on gender and ICT. She has worked as Lead Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation for many years, coordinating the deployment of international content management suites as well as managing data warehousing, data mining, and online reporting systems.

Jill Salmon, Program Associate, liaises with WLP partner organizations in Africa and the Middle East and helps coordinate the joint programs in these countries. Jill received her BA in English at Kenyon College and her Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia University, where she focused on economic and political development in Africa. She has interned in the United Nations Liaison division of Médecins Sans Frontières and in the Education division of UNICEF. Prior to joining WLP, Jill was a Fulbright Student Scholar in Senegal where she spent a year creating an adult basic education program for illiterate domestic workers in coordination with a local NGO.