Sarhang Hamasaeed is the Director of Middle East Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP).
He joined USIP in February 2011 and works on programme management, organisational development, and monitoring and evaluation. His areas of focus include political and policy analysis, conflict analysis, dialogue processes, reconciliation and post-conflict stabilisation, and ethnic and religious minorities.
He also writes and comments on Iraq, Syria, and the Middle East, regularly giving lectures at the Foreign Service Institute on ISIL and challenges to governance in Iraq. Hamasaeed has more than 15 years of strategy, management, and monitoring and evaluation experience in governmental, nongovernmental, private sector, and media organisations.
As a deputy director general at the Council of Ministers of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq from 2008 to 2009, Hamasaeed managed strategic government modernisation initiatives through IT with the goal of helping improve governance and service delivery.
As a programme manager for the Research Triangle Institute International from 2003 to 2004, he managed civic engagement and local democratic governance programmes in Iraq. Hamasaeed also worked as a planning and relations manager at Kurdistan Save the Children from 1997 to 2002.
He holds a Master of International Development Policy from Duke University and is a Fulbright alumnus.