Sarah Smiles Persinger
Publications and Media OfficerUnited States Studies Centre
![Sarah Smiles Persinger](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ooh1fq7e/production/692551a92ac8026dab625f4f1875feae598eb79e-1650x2250.png/16.png?rect=22,0,1607,2250&w=320&h=448&fit=min&auto=format)
Biography
Sarah Smiles Persinger is the USSC’s Publications and Media Officer.
For 11 years (2012-2023), Sarah lived in the city of Erie in Northwest Pennsylvania.
In 2017, she worked a media and policy advisor on a mayoral campaign in Erie. In 2011, she served on Congressman Mike Kelly’s Military and Foreign Affairs Advisory Board.
From 2009-2014, Sarah was a Research Associate at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for Peace Studies and Keough School for Global Affairs, conducting research in Afghanistan.
From 2006-2009, she was a parliamentary reporter for The Age in Canberra, covering foreign affairs, defence and national security. She had assignments in Afghanistan and Lebanon, covering the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Sarah started her career as a freelance journalist in Beirut, covering the war in Iraq from Baghdad and Lebanese politics for ABC Radio, the South China Morning Post, and the Sydney Morning Herald among other outlets.
Her research, 'On the Margins: Women, National Boundaries, and Conflict in Saddam's Iraq,' was published in the book Middle Eastern Belongings.