Sandy Dang

Instructor

Sandy is a social entrepreneur, inspiring speaker, experienced executive, leadership trainer, and management consultant. Her passion is to develop young people to maximize their leadership potential to benefit society.

Sandy is the Co-founder and Principal of 11plus Philanthropy, a consulting company that provides leadership training, capacity building, and strategic planning to companies, foundations, and nonprofit organizations.

From 2011 to 2018, Sandy served as a Presidential Appointee on the Board of Directors and Executive Director of the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), an independent U.S. Government agency with a mission to strengthen the bilateral relations between the United States and Vietnam. During her tenure, Sandy initiated a leadership development program that includes Public Narrative and Adaptive Leadership for hundreds of VEF Fellows who are scientists and engineers.

Born in Hanoi, Sandy left Vietnam when she was ten years old. After living in rural China and Hong Kong refugee camps, Sandy resettled in the United States at the age of thirteen. Because of her personal experience, Sandy has devoted her life to helping children and families. For more than a decade, she served as Founder and Executive Director of Asian American Leadership, Empowerment, and Development (AALEAD), an organization that supports immigrant and refugee families through a broad array of educational and social services.

Sandy has received numerous awards for her outstanding public leadership, including being named Washingtonian of the Year in 2001. Sandy earned a B.A. from Duke University and an M.A. from Harvard Kennedy School.

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Nizar Farsakh

Instructor

Nizar has been teaching Public Narrative for over 10 years with broad experience across the Middle East and North Africa region as well as in the US. He was a TA for Marshall in 2010 for a year where he was responsible for 16 students each term, running weekly section meetings, reviewing written work and guiding learning. Along with the rest of the teaching team, he developed and refined course pedagogy and content, took on a variety of logistical and administrative tasks to help run the class, and assisted Marshall in training outside of HKS as well. 

In 2012, he trained pro-Palestine and pro-Israel student groups from 5 Ivy League schools to use narrative to address polarization, harness collaboration and mobilize others. In 2013, he led debriefing sessions in Northern Ireland for 30 Palestinian & Israeli mid-level professionals and international diplomats meeting a range of activists from the full political spectrum to learn how to listen to stories and ask questions that help uncover values. Other organizations he trained included New Organizing Institute (NOI), Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute (AMCLI) and J-Street. Nizar has an M.A. from King’s College London and an M.A. from Harvard Kennedy School.

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