Nada Salem Abisamra's Bio

 

Nada Salem Abisamra is a passionate and highly motivated person who is committed to excellence and innovation, and will do anything to get any challenging job very successfully done. She is a pioneer in web page creation and design and has an energetic, dynamic, and proactive approach to working. She has outstanding communication skills that she puts to use on a daily basis. Nada is an expert in assessment and evaluation to reach objectives (needs analyses). She has conducted a lot of research on team work, emotional intelligence and leadership skills, which she always strives to incorporate in the work environment. 

Nada combines several skills that enable her to be highly successful in any endeavor she undertakes: leadership, technology, web page design, social media, photo editing (Photoshop), publishing (yearbooks and yearEbooks), communication, language fluency (in 3 languages), creative thinking, teaching, assertiveness, empathy, win/win thinking, friendliness, competence, production efficiency, hard work, organization, marketing, and public relations skills. In addition, Nada believes in every person’s need to be humble, hence to know their limits, seek advice, and ask questions, without forgetting to often recognize and praise the members of their team.

Nada taught English, EFL, ESL, ESP, and English Communication for 15 years both in school settings (College Notre-Dame, Jamhour (CNDJ) & the American Community School at Beirut (ACS)) and in college settings (Saint Joseph University (USJ) and The George Washington University (GWU)). She co-created and co-teaches at the GWU Graduate School of Education an online Methods Course for Teachers of Arabic as a Foreign Language when it is offered. 

Nada is the Co-Editor in Chief of “Teaching World Languages: A Practical Guide- Arabic Edition” (The National Capital Language Resource Center, Washington, DC).

 

In 1998, Nada created and designed a website titled “Nada’s ESL Island” (https://www.nadasisland.com/) which has more than one million visitors and has won several educational awards (The Busy Educator's Award, the Web English Teacher Outstanding Resource award, three Golden Web Awards, and an Academic Excellence award). 

Nada gave, in schools and universities and at different national and international conferences, several workshops related to integrating technology in the classroom, emotional intelligence, team building, webpage design, peer mentoring, motivation, and learning strategies. She produced, in 2006, ACS's award-winning 250-page Centennial Yearbook and, in 2017, St. Leo the Great's 8th Grade Graduation Class's Class Song and 96-minute Graduation Video (from pre-k to 8^th grade).

In September 2006, Nada became the administrative director of the Master of Science in Finance Program at GW School of Business and received an Appreciation Award in June 2008. She remained their Assessment of Learning Coordinator for AACSB Accreditation until May 2014.

Nada was the executive director of Project Roots (2011-2013). She created the website and social media pages, organized the work, and worked with the regional coordinators spread throughout the US. In August 2012, Nada became the Executive Director of the Maronite Academy which she co-founded and helped launch. She recruited 100 students from all over the world, gave them, along with four other instructors, five online courses about Lebanon which determined who would be selected to go with the Maronite Academy on a fully-covered educational trip to Lebanon in summer 2013.

Nada was the Director of Project Roots and The Christian Lebanese Foundation in the World from October 2013, when the organization was established, till March 2019.  She successfully managed to grow the team from 10 to about 100 people who were highly committed to the cause. She mobilized a very large number of people of Lebanese descent residing in the US (and in the world) and got them to believe in the cause. She simply helped put the cause on the world map for people of Lebanese descent in and outside the United States and made the foundation a reference with regards to registration of life events in Lebanon.

Nada Salem Abisamra is the Founder, President, and CEO of the American Foundation for Educational Excellence (AFEE) which was set up in October 2015. It is an organization whose mission is to improve higher education globally, especially in the Middle-East, and mainly in Lebanon. Nada is also the Founder, President, and CEO of the International Foundation for Women's Empowerment (IFWE) which seeks to empower women and help them thrive both on the personal and professional levels, regardless of nationality and religion.

Nada holds a bachelor’s degree in languages (Arabic, French, English), a teaching diploma, and two master's degrees, one in Translation (Attestation de Maîtrise, from Saint Joseph University, USJ- ETIB) and another in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (from the American University of Beirut, AUB). She is now working at The George Washington University, GWU, towards an Education Doctorate in Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Technology Leadership 

(https://nadasisland.com/doc/ ). She is also working towards an Executive Certificate in Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Executive Education.

http://www.nadasisland.com

http://www.foundationforwomen.net

http://www.foundationforeducation.org