NYUAD Alumni Leadership Award

Position: Middle East AI Lead for Tax & Legal, PwC
Location: Dubai, UAE.

Sandro is a leading advocate for integrating AI into public policy and governance in the Middle East. As PwC Middle East’s AI lead for tax consulting, he partners with tech leaders like OpenAI and Harvey to bring advanced technology into policy implementation. He led the creation of an AI-powered tax compliance tool that won the 2024 UAE Innovates Hackathon, demonstrating his drive for practical innovation.

A dynamic speaker at events such as LEAP Saudi Arabia and World Summit AI in Doha, Sandro champions strategic and ethical AI adoption. With a political science, psychology, and technology background from NYU Abu Dhabi, he bridges disciplines to create real-world impact. Originally from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sandro has experience across social impact, professional services, and public service, always focused on helping organizations make thoughtful, strategic decisions.

As an NYUAD alumnus, he now partners with the university as both an employer and mentor. From advising GCC ministries to advocating for ethical AI and wildlife conservation, Sandro exemplifies responsible leadership, innovation, and a commitment to meaningful change.

Position: Senior Director of Programs at Coro New York Leadership Center
Location: New York, USA

Farah Mohmad (she/her) is the Senior Director of Programs at Coro New York Leadership Center. She is also a Coro Leadership New York (LNY) 2023 alumna. In her role, she manages the team of Directors and Assistant Directors who operate the fellowships and she also teaches Adaptive Leadership for the different fellowships. Before joining Coro, she spent many years working as a Social Worker directly with individuals who have been impacted by the criminal legal system. A major focus of her work has been developing and growing programs that support the immediate needs of community members, such as substance use awareness and harm-reduction programming, and her team's needs, such as developing the Social Work Internship Program. She also worked on launching a program addressing intimate partner violence. She was first introduced to leadership work through participating as a graduate student fellow in the Adaptive Leadership Fellowship. She is now continuing the work as part of the teaching team for the fellowship. Farah is passionate about creating spaces where individuals are able to gain skills and reach their full potential so that they can impact positive change in their communities. She holds a BA in Psychology from NYU Abu Dhabi and is part of the 2015 class. She also holds a Master's of Social Work (MSW) from NYU Silver School of Social Work. She is a Licensed Social Worker in New York State.

Position: Assistant Manager, Office of Research, NYU Abu Dhabi
Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE

Salah was part of the second cohort of graduates at NYU Abu Dhabi and graduated with Honors. He received the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Scholarship for Exceptional Emirati Students, the NYU Founders Day Award, and he was a University Honors Scholar. Salah grew up in Dubai and commuted home from campus over the weekends. Salah also helped set up karting and golf activities as a student leader.

Salah majored in psychology and minored in political science, and joined the Kawader program as a researcher in 2015. The Kawader program is a unique, national capacity-building research fellowship program that allows outstanding graduates to gain experience in a cutting-edge academic research environment.

Salah’s research focus was social and developmental psychology, with an emphasis on early childhood development. He then went on to study organizational and social psychology at The London School of Economics for his Masters (MSc).

Salah joined the Office of Research in 2017, where he oversaw the management and the operations of the Kawader fellowship program. He has seen the campus community evolve over time, from Downtown campus to Saadiyat.

Salah grew the program in its early years from 5 researchers to over 26 researchers today, expanding to include postdoctoral positions. Salah inspires and helps nurture young Emirati talent in the field of research. With his contributions to the strategic direction of the program, it continues to grow, creating more opportunities for talented UAE nationals who dedicate their careers to the realm of research.

Among his colleagues, Salah is known for his warmth, collegiality, steady leadership, strategic mindset, and unique ability to resolve challenges through conversation and mediation. His commitment to the researchers in his program, and researcher capacity building in the UAE, reflects and enables the core priorities of the Office of Research and NYUAD.
 

Position: Senior Project Lead at McKinsey.org
Location: Bali, Indonesia

Dhia’s commitment to making an impact is evident through her work in transforming public service in Indonesia as well as her ability to touch hearts through her arts. She has built a legacy in the sustainability and social impact sectors. She is currently a Senior Project Lead at Delterra.org (a non-profit incubated by McKinsey & company) that aims to improve circular economy in Indonesia. Prior to that, she worked alongside the Indonesian government on a human trafficking prevention program implemented across the country. Beyond her social impact career, Dhia is an accomplished artist working with hundreds of musicians and artists. She directed musicals attended by the President of Indonesia. She is also a self produced singer-songwriter with her recently released songs, “The Clouds Will Embrace You” and “Permata.” 

Dhia graduated from NYU Abu Dhabi in 2017. Faithful to her belief to nurture multiple pursuits in her life, she majored in Political Science, and gained a minor in Business and a concentration in Music. Dhia's commitment to making an impact was evident early in her Capstone process as far back as 2016. She went out of her way, often at great personal risk, to collect sensitive data on population, labor, and human trafficking statistics in the summer of her Junior year. This was an intentional research project focused on how young Indonesian individuals’ perception of migration, particularly those from the vulnerable area, are affected by information intervention on the issues of human trafficking and safe migration. Her Capstone became the catalyst that opened the door for collaboration in establishing Desmigratif with the government. This program implemented across the country provided information on safe migration to people prone to human trafficking and built a digital system to monitor human trafficking prevention and empowerment activities across Indonesia. Dhia and her team’s contribution led to more than 250+ staff trained, ~500k individuals informed and 6,000+ human trafficking cases tracked.

Wanting to extend her impact, Dhia saw an opportunity to utilize her knowledge in the public sector to address climate change issues, which she previously cultivated at NYU Abu Dhabi as a core member of Ecoherence (student group). She worked as a part of the frontier team establishing McKinsey.org (now Delterra.org) in Indonesia. She is part of the organization’s regional leadership and with her team, she has launched a Rethinking Recycling Academy, an initiative that works with the local community and partners, to establish and scale integrated waste and recycling systems across Indonesia. This includes building capabilities within communities, educating households on the importance of waste management, and helping improve traceability and transparency across a complex value chain.

The program in Indonesia is on track to provide waste management for 80,000 people by the end of the year, and has plans to expand across other regions in the global South.

Dhia believes that powerful and systemic impact could be achieved through multidisciplinary approach as well as multi-sector collaboration. In the next few years she intends to continue driving impact through improving public service at a systemic scale. Artistically she’s excited to continue creating and sharing her heart through different mediums of arts.

Position: Chief Civil Engineer and Managing Director of Imperial Engineering Associates
Location: Kathmandu, Nepal

Chandan Mishra is currently the Chief Civil Engineer and Managing Director of Imperial Engineering Associates — an engineering design and construction firm based in Kathmandu, Nepal. At Imperial, he leads a team of 16 engineers, architects, and builders to deliver design and construction practices in line with 'economy, efficiency, and elegance." He has led the structural designs of the Arju Rice Mills, a mill with a production capacity of thirty-six thousand tons of rice a year, which aims to turn farmers into entrepreneurs and uplift their economic standards. He has also designed and built two commercial complexes, one of which is for a major domestic airliner, Buddha Air, in Nepal. This building is based inside the only international airport in Nepal.

After graduating in May 2019 with a major in Civil Engineering, Mishra returned home to Nepal to work with underprivileged school children. Here he served as the Executive Director at Bloom Nepal School, a semi-residential school based in Kathmandu seeking to educate students from disadvantaged backgrounds from all over Nepal. An engineer with a passion for education, he genuinely believes that the seed for a sustainable society starts right from the premises of a sustainable school. Dedicated to giving back to his community, Mishra combined his skills as an engineer with his passion as an educator and launched a project that converts organic waste into biogas for purposes such as cooking in the school's kitchen or for energy using a gas engine generator. This project promotes an active involvement of the students, teachers, and the local community and encourages sustainable agriculture practices by distributing organic manure to local farmers to promote organic farming. This project won the Zayed Sustainability Prize in January 2020 from the South Asia Region.

During his studies at NYUAD, Chandan took part in the University's renowned Engineers for Social Impact program, where students design engineering solutions in close collaboration with communities for real-world needs. His experience in Ajloun, Jordan, as a part of this project, was instrumental in his pursuit to work in his home country after graduating.

In January 2021, for his academic excellence and impactful social works, Chandan received the "Stern Award" from NYU Stern, a merit-based award covering the entire cost of an MBA Education. After Stern, he aspires to return to Nepal and continue his endeavors to set up seven residential schools, one in each of the newly formed seven provinces of Nepal, to pioneer an education model that promotes rigor, diversity, and sustainability, in line with the education that he received at NYUAD.

Position: CEO / co-founder at imagiLabs
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Dora is the co-founder and CEO of imagiLabs, blending community, software and hardware together to equip and empower teenage girls to shape the future with technology.

As a true explorer, Dora has lived, studied and volunteered in 10 countries across 4 continents. She has a BSc in Neuroscience with a minor in Computer Science from New York University Abu Dhabi and moved to Sweden for her MSc studies in Human Computer Interaction at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. After a short industry experience as a Software Engineer and UX Designer, during her MSc studies she turned to the entrepreneurial path and began working on imagiLabs after receiving grants from Start-Up Chile. imagiLabs has since been supported by the Apple Entrepreneur Bootcamp, Google for Startups and Sting, the leading start-up accelerator in the Nordics.

Along with working to bring technology closer to girls, she also works as a yoga teacher - bringing mindfulness closer to engineers.