Olga Morkova

Advocacy Manager-Ukraine/Europe, HIAS

Deputy Chair, USRAB Executive Committee

Olga Morkova joins the Executive Committee as Deputy Chair. Olga is an Advocacy Manager, Ukraine/Europe at the HIAS, currently focusing on international advocacy on behalf of refugees and internally displaced persons affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Olga is an expert in the field of forced displacement, having worked for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM).

Elizabeth Ferris

Research Professor, Institute for the Study of International Migration

Elizabeth Ferris is Research Professor and Director of the  Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. In 2016, she also served as Senior Advisor to the UN General Assembly’s Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York and from 2020-21 as an expert advisor to the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. .  Prior to joining Georgetown, she was a Senior Fellow and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement and spent 20 years working in the field of humanitarian assistance, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Council of Churches.  She has written extensively on humanitarian issues, including Consequences of Chaos: Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis and the Failure to Protect, with Kemal Kirsici (Brookings Institution Press, 2016).  Her latest book – Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts (with Katharine Donato) was published by Routledge in July 2019.  She received her BA degree from Duke University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Florida.

John Slocum

Executive Director, Refugee Council USA (RCUSA)

John Slocum was appointed Executive Director of RCUSA in March 2022, after serving as Interim Executive Director since January 2021. John previously served as co-coordinator of the Repository of Documentation Relating to Disappearances in Mexico (RDDM) and as an independent consultant to foundations and nonprofits, providing strategic planning and executive recruitment services in the fields of migration, refugees, and human rights. From 1997 to 2016, he worked for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where he served as program director for grantmaking initiatives on global migration, the Central America-Mexico-U.S. migration corridor, and U.S. immigration policy. John also directed MacArthur’s Higher Education Initiative in Russia and its Research and Writing grants competition. He is a member of the advisory board for Justice in Motion, and a past board member of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees. John has a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, taught at the University of Oklahoma, and has published articles and commentary on migration, philanthropy, and Russia.

Nili Sarit Yossinger

Executive Director, Refugee Congress

Nili Sarit Yossinger is the inaugural Executive Director for Refugee Congress, overseeing operations and implementing communications, funding, capacity-building, and advocacy strategies that fulfill the organization’s mission of ensuring that there are always refugees at the table as equal partners.

Prior to her work with Refugee Congress, Nili was a Research Project Manager at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) and the Senior Vice President for Research at Georgetown University, where her projects focused on complex humanitarian emergencies and the intersections of forced migration, food security and environmental degradation in the Horn of Africa, Central Africa, and Persian Gulf regions. Nili previously worked with the Capital Area Food Bank, the UN Refugee Agency regional office in Washington, D.C., and Human Rights First. Nili also serves as an Advisor for Concordia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Loyola University Chicago and a Master of Arts in German and European Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, along with a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies from ISIM.