Sarah Leah Whitson is the Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. Previously, she has worked as an attorney in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She has conducted numerous human rights missions in the Middle East over the past 15 years, including the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Harvard Study Team, and International Study Team missions examining the impact of war and sanctions on the Iraqi civilian population, the International Human Rights Law Group's election-monitoring mission in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq, and a fact-finding mission in Southern Lebanon for Madre. Sarah Leah Whitson has served on the boards of the Armenian Bar Association and the New York chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.