Meet the Board
Malak Nasr, YC’19 (Davenport)
President
Malak graduated from Yale College in 2019 with a bachelor's degree in Anthropology. Following graduation, she was awarded the Cohen Public Service and Gordon Grand fellowships to support her work as Program Director at Havenly Treats, a New Haven-based non-profit offering job training for refugee women. Malak co-directed the first-ever Arab conference at Yale in 2018 that included speaker events and panels on Middle East current affairs, politics, culture, and history. Malak is vocal as a patient advocate for the Type 1 Diabetes community and received the DeDoc Voices scholarship to attend the 2022 Advanced Technologies and Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD) Conference. Malak is pursuing an MPhil in Population Health Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
Omar Christidis, YC’04 (Morse), SOM07
Vice President
Omar Christidis is an entrepreneur, innovation evangelist, and ecosystem builder who is driven by a passion to advance the digital industry in MENA. Omar brings expert knowledge in digital disruption, emerging business models, corporate innovation strategies, and government policies to foster entrepreneurship. Omar's company, Arabnet, has organized over 30 tech conferences featuring more than 2,000 global experts, supported over 650 startups, and issued over a dozen original research reports. Omar is an Advisory Board member of the Strategic Foresights Program at the Middle East Institute (Washington DC), a Faculty Member and Moderator at the Aspen Institute, UK, a Board Member of the Lebanese Exhibitions & Conferences Association (LECA), and a Founding Board Member of the Yale Arab Alumni Association.
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Shady M. Qubaty, YC’20 (Morse)
Treasurer and Director of Development
As their first undergraduate from Yemen, Shady graduated from Yale College in 2020, double majoring in economics and Near Eastern studies. He was president of his college council, the Arab Students Association, and the MENA Association, which he founded to lead the campaign to establish a fifth cultural center. After receiving Yale’s 2020 Henry Fellowship, he completed a master’s degree in development studies at the University of Cambridge. An Innovation and Strategy Associate of the Dubai Business Associates scheme, Shady is a member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and currently works with DP World’s M&A team. Qubaty is also the Founder and CEO of Yemen’s leading international NGO, Adalah, the official secretariat to the UK Parliament, and serves as the VP of the Economic Forum for Sustainable Development. In those capacities, he has engaged in UN Human Rights Council meetings, spoke before and moderated panels at the UK Parliament, and was the youngest speaker invited to the Beirut Institute Summits.
Thomas Simsarian Dolan, YC’05 (Morse)
Director of University Relations
Thomas Simsarian Dolan graduated from Yale College in 2005. He is currently an ACLS Emerging Voices Postdoctoral Fellow in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University. After receiving his Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University, he spent last year teaching as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in History at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Thomas has served as a visiting researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, published in Mashriq & Mahjar, Huffington Post, Egypt Migrations, Muftah, Arab America, The Armenian Weekly, and HowlRound, and currently serves as Co-Coordinator of the SWANA Section of the Association for Asian American Studies and a member of SAG-AFTRA’s first National MENA Committee.
Naser Al Sayer, SOM’19
Director of Activities
Naser graduated from the School of Management in 2019, and currently holds the position of Chairperson at AlSayer Franchising, which operates over 70 branches in Kuwait, He is also a Senior Investment Analyst at Al Dhow Holding. He also focuses on screening technology and fund investments in addition, to direct investment Naser is passionate about economic development and has served as Vice Curator for the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers at the Kuwait City Hub for two years. He currently serves on the Board of the Kuwait Business Council in the United Arab Emirates connecting Kuwait businesses to the UAE. Naser has over 7 years of work experience in Finance and Strategy. Previously, Naser was part of the National Bank of Kuwait’s Domestic Corporate Banking Group as a Relationship Officer, primarily working on lending and managing clients' credit needs. Naser is a graduate of the Master’s in Management (MAM) program from Yale School of Management and holds an MBA from IE Business School with a focus on Finance.
Salma Shaheen, YC’22 (Silliman)
Director of Membership and Volunteers
Salma graduated from Yale College in 2022 with a bachelor's degree in Economics. At Yale, she received several fellowships to conduct research at the intersection of labor economics, spatial economics, and migration in Palestine. She worked as an Economics RA for Professor Rohini Pande and the Yale Economics Growth Centre. Born and raised in Hebron, Salma founded Yalies4Palestine to advocate for Palestinians’ rights under the Israeli occupation. She served on Yale’s Advisory Committee on Accessibility Resources, for which she was awarded Silliman’s Diversity and Inclusion Award. Salma also serves on the board committee for the United World Colleges national committee in Palestine. Currently, she is pursuing an MSc in Economics for Development at the University of Oxford after receiving Yale’s 2022 Henry Fellowship. In her research, Salma focuses on gender differentials in the labor market in the MENA region. She is a geomapping nerd & a lover of Arabic poetry and Levant textiles!
Mohammad Salem, YC’24 (Davenport)
Senior Student Liaison
Mohammad Salem is a rising senior originally from Rockford, IL. He is studying Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology with a certificate in global health studies. Mohammad served as the previous president of the Arab Students Association as well as the Vice President of the Yale international relations association. Mohammad is very passionate about global health, having previously worked on a research project with the Yale School of public health investigating the link between substance use amongst forced migrants in Amman, Jordan. Mohammad also works as an undergraduate researcher at the Yale Stem Center researching neutrophils in the Lu Lab.