Sasha Chanoff

Sasha Chanoff, RefugePoint’s co-founder and executive director, has worked for two decades in refugee rescue, relief and resettlement operations in Africa and the United States. Prior to launching RefugePoint, Sasha consulted with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kenya and worked with the International Organization for Migration throughout Africa, identifying refugees in danger, undertaking rescue missions and working on refugee protection issues with the US, Canadian, Australian and other governments. Sasha has worked extensively with many refugee populations, including Sudanese Lost Boys, Somali Bantus, Congolese Tutsis-at-risk, Liberians and Sierra Leonians among others. He has appeared on 60 Minutes as well as in other national and international TV, radio and print media outlets, has lectured, presented and given keynote speeches at universities and international refugee conferences and has published extensively on refugee issues.

Sasha holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. in Humanitarian Assistance from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy, a joint degree program implemented through the Tufts Feinstein International Famine Center. At the Fletcher and Nutrition schools his focus was on NGO management, ethics and humanitarianism, humanitarian aid in complex emergencies, nutrition in complex emergencies and forced migration. Chanoff has received fellowships from Ashoka, the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, and Echoing Green and is a recipient of the Charles Bronfman Humanitarian Prize and Gleitsman International Activist Award. He is a member of the steering committee for New England International Donors, and serves as an adviser to a private human rights foundation. He is also an adviser to the major motion picture The Good Lie, and its charitable initiative The Good Lie Fund.