Sam Van Doran - Development Director

Sam Van Doran is Development Director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, a nonprofit organization serving more than 1 million asylum seekers from 175 countries living across the United States. Previously, Sam was S.T.O.P.’s Development Director, and worked in fundraising and communications at the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), the largest and oldest statewide immigrants’ rights coalition in the country. She was also a 2021 Fellow with Coro New York’s Immigrant Civic Leadership Program. Sam brings her background in fundraising, historical research, and immigrant justice activism to the fight against state surveillance.

In 2020, Sam completed a dual MA/MSc history degree from Columbia University and the London School of Economics, graduating with distinction. Her coursework focused on migration, American politics, foreign policy, and humanitarian aid, and her dissertation examined U.S. immigration and refugee policy and refugee mutual aid networks after the Vietnam War. She received her BA in history with honors from Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, MD.

Sam has written for the New York Daily News, MTV News, and Fast Company; consulted with civil society groups at UNAIDS; designed “know-your-rights” posters for New Yorkers with the Center for Urban Pedagogy; and been featured on the front page of the New York Times (in the background of a photo, but it still counts). Besides stints in Baltimore and London, she has lived in New York all her life, and enjoys painting, reading, swimming and riding her bike in her free time.