Alex Ebsary joined Spirit of America as a senior regional program manager for the Middle East & Central Asia. Alex brings more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of international relations, development, and humanitarian assistance, including with the Kurdistan Regional Government, United Nations World Food Programme, and International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX).

In addition to his professional experience, Alex is passionate about protecting the cultural heritage of displaced communities. In 2018, he co-founded Music in Exile, an organization dedicated to documenting the music and stories of displaced musicians. In 2021, he worked with a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh to collect, translate, and publish a book of Rohingya folktales, the first of its kind in English.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Alex attended West Virginia University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics, and the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom where he earned a master’s degree in Kurdish studies. He is conversational in Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish.