Afrah Nasser is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center in Washington DC. Formerly, she worked as a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch investigating humanitarian law violations and human rights abuses in Yemen. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, she was an activist, independent journalist, and analyst reporting on Yemen’s social and political changes for over a decade. She is the founding editor of the Sana'a Review. 

Nasser has written for and made appearances on numerous news outlets, including Al-Jazeera, The Monitor, Atlantic Council, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and others. She is the recipient of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society Organization's 2017 Eldh-Ekblads Peace Prize, the Pennskaft Prize in 2016, the Swedish Publicists Club's 2014 Dawit Issak Prize, and the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award in 2017. In 2013, Nasser was named by BBC as one of the "100 Women Who Changed the World," and has been featured three times as one of the 100 most influential Arabs by Arabian Business Magazine. Her blog, created during Yemen's 2011 uprisings, has won her the recognition of CNN and Al-Monitor as one of the most influential blogs in the Middle East for her coverage of human rights. 

Nasser holds a B.A. in English Linguistics from Sana’a University and an M.A. in Communication from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is a native Arabic speaker and is fluent in English, Amharic, and Swedish.