Associate Vice President for Government Relations and Public Policy
Hanan Saab serves as AAU’s Associate Vice President for Government Relations and Public Policy. In this role, she has primary responsibility for research funding and policy issues at the intersection of higher education, national security policy, and U.S. universities' global engagement. Her advocacy includes funding for Department of Defense science and technology programs as well as policies and programs of the Departments of State and Homeland Security. Hanan's scope of work includes international research collaborations and visa policies affecting international students and scholars. She leads AAU’s federal relations task forces on innovation and immigration and serves on the Advisory Board of the International Student Resource Center.
Hanan has 15 years of experience in government relations and international education roles including with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and NAFSA: Association of International Educators. She honed her legislative skills as an education policy fellow in the U.S. Senate.
Hanan is a master’s candidate in the executive global policy program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of Minnesota, where she also began her career in the institution’s Learning Abroad Center. Her extensive international experiences include a year of foreign policy study at the American University in Cairo.