Our Team

Rod's family left Iran in the 1980's and settled in Marietta, Georgia. As President of Inspire Dreams, he oversees partnerships and works closely with local centers on the ground. Previously, he has been an analyst for Merrill Lynch, Fulbright Scholar in Morocco, and a Fellow at UNESCO in Paris. In 2010, he was named an Oxfam International Youth Action Partner, where he traveled to India to represent the American delegation. His work has been featured on CNN International, Al-Jazeera English, and BBC Persian.

Rod graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service with a degree in International Politics. He studied abroad in Jerusalem and moonlighted at Al-Jazeera, covering Palestinian affairs in the West Bank. He is an avid drummer and dreams of one day performing on stage with Bruce Springsteen.

The son of immigrants from China and India, Indra Sen grew up in Connecticut. He is currently a master's student at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, where he was named a Harvard Public Service Fellow. As Executive Director, Indra oversees fundraising, programming, and organizational development. He has previously worked for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Catholic Charities' refugee minor program, and Credit Suisse Investment Banking.

Indra is a 2008 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Georgetown University, where he majored in international affairs and was a recipient of a Truman Scholarship and the McTighe Prize, the university's highest honor. In his free time, Indra enjoys rooting for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Carolina Escalera is currently a master's student at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, where she is a Charles Rangel Fellow. She recently returned from Brazil where she was studying and teaching as a Fulbright Scholar. Trained as a journalist, her previous experiences include working for Al Jazeera in Washington, DC, the Beijing Olympic News Service in China, and People Magazine in London. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri, where she was named an International Institute for Public Policy Fellow. Carolina is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, and is also conversational in Arabic.

Parissa Jahromi is a doctoral student in Psychological Studies in Education at Stanford University. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in psychology from Wake Forest University. Her research interests include understanding and promoting positive development during adolescence, specifically, exploring developmental antecedents and consequences of various forms of youth civic engagement. A Fulbright Scholar, she has researched this subject in the Netherlands, Singapore, and Italy.

Ken Norman studies at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Arabic. In the summer of 2010, he studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo as a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar and Garland Johnson Scholar.

In the Fall of 2008, he served on Barack Obama's Presidential campaign, where he oversaw voter registration and canvassing efforts for five precincts in Greensboro, NC. In his free time he runs a political discussion forum and enjoys reading and playing the guitar.

Paul Hendrix is a Dutch native who is currently serving as an audiovisual intermediary for IUCN's "What If We Change" Project in India. He received his formal training from a cinematographic institute in Amsterdam. In addition, he holds a masters degree in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from Utrecht University and has studied in Spain, Perú, and at the University of California at Davis. Paul has created a documentary film focusing on refugees in the Dheisheh and Jalazone refugee camps in the West Bank. He speaks Dutch, English, Spanish, French, and German. In his spare time he is a rabid Ajax fan.

Hammad Hammad was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Deir Debwan, a small town in the West Bank, close to the city of Ramallah. When he was sixteen he moved to California. Hammad received a Masters degree from Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy as a Charles Rangel Fellow, and is now pursuing a career in the US Foreign Service. He holds a masters degree in human rights from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar, and a bachelors degree in international politics from Georgetown University, where he was awarded the Hudson Medal.

Hammad has served as a White House intern in the Office of Public Engagement, working on outreach efforts to the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities. In his free time, Hammad enjoys swimming and writing.