Samira Damavandi

Samira Damavandi (she/her) joined the Guttmacher Institute as the Senior Policy Associate, Federal Issues in 2024. In this role, she leads Guttmacher’s advocacy on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in US foreign policy. Previously, she served as the Senior Global Policy Advocate at the International Center for Research on Women, where she led the US federal policy portfolio, including efforts to combat child marriage and promote women’s economic empowerment. Prior to that, Ms. Damavandi served as a Legislative Assistant to Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA). In that position, she led work on the Pro-Choice Caucus (now the Reproductive Freedom Caucus), and two bills sponsored by Rep. Lee, the Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (Global HER) Act and the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act (EACH) Act; Ms. Damavandi also led the immigration, education and labor portfolios. She received her MPhil in modern Middle Eastern studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in political science and Middle Eastern studies, with a minor in gender and women’s studies, from the University of California, Berkeley.