Dr. Sharif Fayez

Dr. Sharif Fayez served as the Afghan Minister of Higher Education from 2001-2004. A signatory to the Bonn Conference, he completely overhauled the Afghan education system, restored co-education to the country and established six new universities. He then stayed on to help establish and found the American University of Afghanistan.

Sharif Fayez passed away in early February, 2019.

Matt Trevithick

Matt Trevithick worked as the Director of Communications at the American University of Afghanistan from 2010 to 2014. He is currently on the Board of the Friends of the American University of Afghanistan.

Before going overseas, he worked as a writer and researcher at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC for Rock The Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Muslim World by Robin Wright, which won an Overseas Press Club award for Best Non-Fiction Title in 2012, as well as at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Daily Beast, the Wall St. Journal, the Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He speaks Dari and can get by in Russian and Arabic, and has lived and traveled across the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa, including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mali.