Norwegian Refugee Council - USA

Bernice G Romero

Bernice G Romero is the Executive Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council USA (NRC USA) and is responsible for providing overall leadership to the organization. NRC USA focuses on fundraising and humanitarian policy and advocacy in the US on behalf of Oslo-based NRC.

Before coming to NRC USA, Ms. Romero was the Senior Director of Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy at Save the Children US, where she led Save the Children’s US-focused policy and advocacy around humanitarian crises. She served on the Humanitarian Senior Management Team that oversaw humanitarian operations. Ms. Romero was also co-chair and member of the management team of Save the Children International’s Humanitarian Advocacy Working Group, which is responsible for Save the Children’s international humanitarian advocacy and campaigning efforts.

Prior to her role at Save the Children, Ms. Romero was Oxfam International’s Advocacy and Campaigns Director, and oversaw Oxfam’s international advocacy campaigns on a range of humanitarian, development, and social justice issues. She also oversaw Oxfam’s international advocacy offices in Washington, Geneva, Brussels, and New York, which focused on the International Finance Institutions, United Nations, European Union and World Trade Organization. Prior to that, Ms. Romero was the Deputy Director for Policy and External Affairs at Oxfam America, focused on human rights in Latin America and international humanitarian response.

Ms. Romero earned her masters’ degree in Latin American studies from Stanford University, and her undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Hispanic Studies from Harvard College. Before coming to Washington DC she worked as an aide to Nobel laureate, President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, working with him to establish the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation at the Arias Foundation in Costa Rica. Ms. Romero also worked at the Latin America Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center where she focused on ethnic conflict, democratization, and gender.

Hannah Grierson-Good

Hannah Grierson-Good is the Acting Head of Operations for NRC USA. Ms. Grierson-Good joined NRC USA in May 2022 and supports the overall operations, compliance, and finance work of the NRC USA office.

Hannah previously worked as the Humanitarian Access Project Manager on NRC's Global Access team and the Administration, Finance, and Advocacy Technical Officer at NRC USA. She also has experience working in humanitarian contexts with St. Andrews Refugee Relief Services in Cairo, Egypt. She is passionate about addressing climate-driven displacement and humanitarian access.

Ms. Grierson-Good graduated from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science with an emphasis in International Security and Development. Hannah also studied Arabic and conflict and peacebuilding at the American University of Cairo. She is currently pursuing a master's degree in International Affairs from George Washington University. Originally hailing from Camano Island, Washington, she loves hiking, reading, and spending time near the ocean.

Aaron Gershowitz

Aaron Gershowitz is the Senior Institutional Partnership Adviser for NRC USA. He serves as the focal point for US-based governmental and foundation donors, maintaining strong relationships with these vital partners and ensuring that all submissions and communications meet the highest quality standards. He also provides training and support to NRC’s field operations teams working on US-funded projects worldwide.

Prior to joining NRC USA in November 2019, Mr. Gershowitz served as Associate Vice President for International Program Operations at HIAS, where he was responsible for building the organization’s capacity to implement projects serving refugees in Latin America and Africa. Prior to that Mr. Gershowitz led HIAS’ refugee resettlement and integration programs across the United States. Mr. Gershowitz has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Russian Language from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Assia Belguedj

Assia Belguedj is the Humanitarian Access Project Manager. As part of the Global Hard to Reach Ambition team, Ms. Belguedj provides support in the project management of a USAID-funded grant that supports global projects aimed at capacity building and improving humanitarian access in complex operation environments.

After working for over six years in the private sector as an architect in Washington, D.C. and Algeria, Ms. Belguedj transitioned to the humanitarian sector by pursuing a master’s degree in the development and rebuilding of communities affected by conflict, natural disasters, and rapid urbanization. She was particularly moved by her field experience in Greece, Spain, and Algeria working with refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. Following this program, she worked with Catholic Relief Services providing technical support for the Shelter and Settlement team in designing transitional shelters for post-emergency recovery efforts in Mozambique. She later worked with Shelter Centre, an NGO based out of Geneva, on projects that focused on the development, evaluation, and assessment of shelter and settlement projects for INGOs in contexts affected by both natural disasters and conflict.

Ms. Belguedj holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Architecture, with a minor in environmental science and urban studies from Northeastern University. She also holds a Masters of International Cooperation and Sustainable Emergency Architecture from Universitat Internacional de Catalunya.

Dhabie Brown

Dhabie Brown is the Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor for NRC USA and is responsible for engaging the US government and UN Security Council in support of policies that protect the rights of displaced and vulnerable people during crisis.

Prior to joining NRC in 2022, Ms. Brown worked for CARE USA as their Senior Humanitarian Policy Advocate (2019-2022) based in Washington DC and for the International Rescue Committee as the Humanitarian Advocacy Advisor based in Iraq (2017-2018). She also served on InterAction’s Humanitarian Policy and Practice team coordinating collective NGO advocacy initiatives (2014-2017).

Ms. Brown has additional program support and research experience with NGOs in the US and in the Middle East, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. She holds a Master of Public Health in International Health with a focus on Complex Humanitarian Emergencies and a Bachelor of Arts in International Development.

Jochen Riegg

Jochen Riegg is the Global Lead for Hard-to-Reach and Humanitarian Access. In this role Mr. Riegg leads and manages NRC’s global access portfolio.

Prior to joining NRC, Mr. Riegg worked with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) since 2014, both in the field and at headquarter level. Throughout his time with OCHA, Mr. Riegg specialized in humanitarian access, civil military coordination, and protection issues, serving as the Head of the Field Coordination, Access and Notification Unit in Yemen, the Head of the Access and Civil Military Coordination Unit in Nigeria, as well as a Humanitarian Affairs Officer in the OCHA Access Units in South Sudan, Mozambique, and Iraq during the Mosul response. In these roles he served as technical expert on humanitarian access, advising the humanitarian leadership, as well as the wider humanitarian community, on all access related policies and processes, including the development and implementation of access strategies for Hard-to-Reach areas. Mr. Riegg also led on the engagement with parties to the conflict to ensure principled humanitarian action at an operational and strategic level.

Beyond his time with the UN, Mr. Riegg worked with different NGOs in South Sudan, Nepal, Myanmar, and Germany focusing on protection, human rights, and risk management.

Mr. Riegg holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict studies from the Philipps University of Marburg in Germany.

McLane Heckman

McLane is the Foundations Adviser for NRC USA. He is responsible for relationships with private foundations and philanthropists, helping deliver transformative commitments to NRC’s critical work across the globe. 

Before joining NRC, McLane was based in Istanbul, Türkiye, where he worked as a resource mobilization consultant for international NGOs in sectors ranging from humanitarian relief to environmental conservation. His fundraising career started on political campaigns in the US, helping elect numerous candidates to federal office. 

McLane’s dedication to protecting displaced people began as an academic researching the challenges faced by asylum seekers to the European Union. 

The proud child of US civil servants, McLane was born in Germany and grew up in East and West Asia. He earned his BA in Philosophy from the University of Mary Washington, MA in Gender Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and continued research towards a PhD in Social Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin. 

Ger Duany

Born in Akobo, South Sudan 42 years ago, Ger Duany is a self-described “village boy”. He remembers his early childhood as a herd boy tending his family’s cattle in the ways of his forefathers. Recollections of roaming vast grassy plains in search of pasture, and of playing in the waters of the White Nile are etched in his memory.

Mr. Duany had his first experience of war at the tender age of seven. It marked the end of his idyllic childhood. His family and community uprooted. At age 13 war separated him from his mother, and like others he resorted to becoming a child soldier as a means of survival during South Sudan’s struggle for independence. Ger became a refugee in Ethiopia and then Kenya and was resettled to the United States from Ifo camp at the youthful age of 15.

In this peculiar environment Mr. Duany struggled. He had to learn to adapt while dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder from life in the war zone. He persevered, went to high school, and developed a love for basketball. “Sports grounded me,” he says. “I often felt frustrated and angry. But I realized that I could not survive that way. So, I learned to quiet my fears. I learned to listen carefully and always to pay attention to very small things.”

Mr. Duany went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Human Services. He worked hard and built a successful career as an actor, model, and now an author of his memoir "Walk Toward the Rising Sun." He has played a leading role in the American drama film, The Good Lie, which tells the story of three refugees who resettled from Kakuma camp to the United States and their struggles to integrate.

On 20 June 2015, World Refugee Day, UNHCR appointed Mr. Duany as the Goodwill Ambassador for the East and Horn of Africa region. Like many more refugees and former refugees throughout the world, he is driven by the urge to give back to the cause of forced displacement. In his role as UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, he uses his story and influence to help spread awareness about the plight of refugees and other populations that the UN Refugee Agency serves.

Brian Komar

Brian Komar is a social impact expert whose career includes leadership roles in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Brian currently serves as Vice President, Global Impact Engagement at Salesforce.org. The team helps advance the stakeholder impact movement by enabling Salesforce.org to measure, manage, and improve their impact and align how best to help their NGO, EDU, and COM customers to do the same.

Brian previously was VP, Marketing and Outreach where he built Salesforce.org’s global marketing and outreach team. Prior to joining Salesforce.org in 2012, Brian drove the go-to-market innovation strategy for Salesforce’s Public Sector team as Director of Industry Solutions. Before joining Salesforce, Brian led social change digital transformation portfolios for nearly twenty years serving in leadership positions at the Center for American Progress and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights where he was founder of civilrights.org.

Brian has written numerous articles on social change and digital transformation, which have appeared in Triple Pundit, Knowledge@Wharton, The Nation, Sales 2.0, and The Huffington Post. Brian’s innovations work was featured in CRM @ The Speed of Light. Brian holds an MPP in public policy from Georgetown University, a BA from the University of Illinois where he graduated cum laude.

Carla Koppell

Carla Koppell has almost thirty years' experience working internationally in a wide range of sectors for public, private, and non-governmental organizations. Currently, she is a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown University Institute for Women, Peace, and Security and teaches in the School of Foreign Service. She leads a nationwide effort to advance the focus on diversity and inclusion in international affairs and public policy education.

Previously, Ms. Koppell was Vice President of the Center for Applied Conflict Transformation for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). There she oversaw a suite of global programs including those considering violent extremism, non-violent movements, inclusive societies, peace and humanitarian negotiations, youth inclusion in peace building, and Colombia and Ukraine programming, in addition to Institute publications, grant-making, fellowships, and training. Before joining USIP, Ms. Koppell served as Chief Strategy Officer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) where she stewarded long-term planning and performance tracking for the U.S. foreign aid agency. She also served as USAID’s first senior coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

Prior to joining USAID, Carla Koppell directed The Institute for Inclusive Security and the Washington, D.C. office of Hunt Alternatives Fund. She also was a senior advisor and interim director of the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Earlier in her career, Ms. Koppell served as deputy assistant secretary of international affairs for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She also worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Ms. Koppell received her M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and her B.S. from Cornell University.

Ambassador Mark C. Storella (ret.)

Mark Storella is Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies where he teaches humanitarian affairs, health diplomacy, multilateral diplomacy and diplomatic negotiation and theory.

As a career diplomat for over thirty years, Mark Storella was US Ambassador to Zambia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, and Dean of the State Department’s Leadership and Management School. In the State Department refugee bureau, he oversaw the US, refugee admissions program and US humanitarian assistance in Asia and the Middle East. He also was Deputy Permanent Representatives to the UN in Geneva where he was the first US representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Counselor for Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva and Senior Coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and IDPs in Baghdad.

Ambassador Storella began his work with refugees as a student volunteer helping resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the Boston area.

Ambassador Storella received his AB from Harvard College and his MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He has written on such diverse subjects as humanitarianism in conflict situations, global health and multilateral diplomacy.

John Kluge

John Kluge is a social entrepreneur and impact investor dedicated to building more sustainable, just, and inclusive economies.

He is the Founder of the Refugee Investment Network (RIN), the first impact investing and blended finance collaborative dedicated to long-term solutions to forced migration. At the RIN, John has co-led the development of strategy, programs, and partnerships that are building the field of ‘refugee and migration lens' investing.

He recently launched a new, nature-based social venture, Thistlerock Mead Company (TMC) which combines ancient honey wine fermentation practices with modern regenerative agriculture to protect pollinators and conserve native ecosystems while supporting the livelihoods of veteran, women, and refugee beekeepers in the U.S. and in emerging markets around the world.

John has served as trustee for Babson College where he helped lead the investment committee's first exploration of ESG and DEI efforts, and currently serves as an Advisor to the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, as a Director for the New Hill Development Corporation, and is an active member of the American Mead Makers Association. He is the co-author of the book, Charity & Philanthropy for Dummies (Wylie, 2013), the author of John Kluge: Stories (Columbia University Press, 2008) and has written about the intersection of business and social impact for Forbes and Conscious Company Magazine. Kluge holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an MBA from the Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.

Camilla Waszink

Camilla Waszink is currently NRC’s Executive Director of Partnerships and Policy, leading the organization’s global advocacy and humanitarian policy work and its partnerships with institutional donors, UN agencies and NGOs. Waszink was previously Chief of Staff to Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and continues as a member of NRC’s Senior Management Group.

Before joining NRC, she was Programme Director at the International Law and Policy Institute and has previously held positions as an adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Norwegian Red Cross and the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution. Waszink has also worked as a researcher and consultant, including for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Small Arms Survey and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. She has published extensively on protection of civilians, international humanitarian law, arms control and disarmament. 

NRC USA’s advocacy work seeks to ensure that U.S. policies make aid available to and protect vulnerable populations. The policy work and field expertise of NRC USA staff have established NRC as a trusted resource within the humanitarian community. They serve regularly as panelists at leading institutions and as press focal points, issuing statements about NRC's US policy work and its impact on global operations that assist refugees and internally displaced people. NRC USA’s advocacy program amplifies the voices of those we serve to safeguard their futures after conflict.

The NRC USA office also leads NRC’s global operations to improve humanitarian access to vulnerable populations in hard-to-reach environments. Our access team manages a series of trainings, workshops and e-resources that prepare UN and NGO frontline aid workers to negotiate access and provide life-saving assistance in some of the world’s most operationally challenging humanitarian areas. NRC’s access team also develops policy and guidance to support NRC’s activities in remote areas, and advocates for neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarian responses.

Photo Gallery

Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize

On October 21, 2022, NRC recieved the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize at the 2022 Hilton Humanitarian Symposium and Prize Ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. NRC USA staff participated in the symposium that featured esteemed speakers, including: Soledad O’Brien, Warsan Shire, Lynsey Addario, Joyce Msuya, Dr. Natalia Kanem, and many more. The theme of the 2022 event was the "The Power of Perseverance". 

Humanitarian Access

During war people are sometimes forced to flee to remote areas that present physical, operational, or political challenges for humanitarian aid workers to respond. These photos show NRC staff responding in hard-to-reach areas in Herat and Badghis, Afghanistan. The NRC USA access team supports the work of NRC and other humanitarian actors to access such challenging environments with life-saving humanitarian assistance through training, advocacy and in-field frontline support.

Photos: Melody Knight and Enayatullah Azad

• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2023
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2022
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2021
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2020
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2019
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2018
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2017
• Financial Statement for NRC USA 2016
• Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax 2023 
• Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax 2022
• Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax 2021
• Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax 2020
• Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax 2019
• Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax 2018
• Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax 2017
• Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax 2016
  
  
• CEO Pledge On Preventing Sexual Abuse, Exploitation, And Harassment By And Of NGO Staff (external link)