Farah Pandith

Farah Pandith is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate. A world-leading expert and pioneer in countering violent extremism, she is the author of the book How We Win: How Cutting-Edge Entrepreneurs, Political Visionaries, Enlightened Business Leaders, and Social Media Mavens Can Defeat the Extremist Threat (2019) and forthcoming special revision for the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks (2026). Farah served as a political appointee under presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush. Most recently she was the first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities. She has also served on the National Security Council, at the U.S. Department of State, and at the U.S. Agency for International Development in various senior roles. She was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, chairing its countering violent extremism task force. The Muhammad Ali Center named Pandith the first-ever Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate for her proven track record of and commitment to promoting humanitarian values. She is the creator and catalyst of the Muhammad Ali Index on Compassion, a global data-driven research tool to measure and predict the state of compassion using human and artificial intelligence. Pandith is a frequent media commentator and has written for publications including The Economist, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She received an A.B. from Smith College and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.