Mehreen Farooq
Principal, Community Development Insights
2025
Mehreen brings more than 15 years of technical expertise providing governmental and non-governmental actors with needs assessments, community engagement, strategic guidance for project implementation, and training to improve public policy and programming.
As a Part-Time Faculty at George Washington University and previously an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, she offers graduate and undergraduate courses on “Conflict and Conflict Resolution,” “Community-Based Terrorism Prevention,” and “Women and Violent Extremism.”
Previously, from 2018-2025, Ms. Farooq served as the Governance Technical Expert at Counterpart International, a non-profit international development organization, where she supported multiple work streams across a diverse and wide-ranging portfolio of governance, food security and women’s empowerment programs, which cumulatively were worth over $200M.
From 2010-2018, Ms. Farooq served as the Vice President and Senior Fellow of the World Organization for Resource Development and Education (WORDE), where she led policy analysis, research, and programming to enhance the capacity of civil society organizations to promote peace and security. She led field-based research across South and Central Asia to identify drivers of conflict and opportunities for building strong, resilient communities.
Applying international lessons learned, she fostered a coalition of over 300 local non-profit organizations in Montgomery County, Maryland and established the first community-based public health effort to prevent radicalization to violent extremism.to build resilience against radicalization, known as the “Montgomery County, MD Model.”
Ms. Farooq has also worked with the University of Maryland’s Center for Health and Homeland Security and McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy.
She received her Master of Arts in International Affairs from American University, Washington, D.C.
The effort to eradicate hate requires the active participation of every component of our society, to include governments, the private sector, communities of faith and indeed every aspect of civil society. There is no more urgent task in front of us. The organizers of the Eradicate Hate Global Summit are doing the United States and the world an enormous service by tackling hatred and extremism with a focus on honest dialogue and conversation, genuine learning and practical solutions. This will not happen overnight, but the Pittsburgh community’s leadership in this effort is genuinely inspiring and motivating.
