Portrait of Will Perry Evans in a suit and tie, with the U.S. Capitol behind him

Will Perry Evans

I have spent more than fifteen years in refugee and humanitarian work, from serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jordan, to coordinating fieldwork in Türkiye, to managing regional teams in East Africa. More recently, I have worked inside the federal agencies that support humanitarian diplomacy and refugee resettlement.

Charlottesville, Virginia

About

The first time I encountered displacement was in the summer of 2007, when I volunteered with the International Rescue Committee in Dallas and facilitated a literacy camp for refugee children who had recently arrived from Burma, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Since then, I have worked on refugee and humanitarian issues from many different seats. I have been a resettlement intern helping case managers with arrivals, an AmeriCorps VISTA running programs for refugee families in Roanoke, Virginia, and a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching in public schools in Jordan.

I earned a Master of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where I also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs in 2016–17. During graduate school I interned with Refugees International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Türkiye. After graduating, I coordinated a project in Istanbul mapping services for Syrian refugees and wrote the Participatory Mapping Toolkit: A Guide for Refugee Contexts. I then led the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team's work in Tanzania, which included Ramani Huria, the METEOR Project, and Open Skies Fellows, all of which relied on the expertise of OpenMap Development Tanzania (OMDTZ).

After returning home, I managed a postdoctoral fellowship program at the University of Virginia's Environmental Institute, and from 2023 to 2025 I worked inside the federal government. At the Office of Refugee Resettlement, I managed the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program (RAPP), provided technical assistance to grantees including resettlement agencies, and led an innovation team that built one of the agency's first AI chatbots to help applicants navigate federal funding opportunities. At the State Department I served as a Foreign Affairs Officer on the Syria Response Team, where I helped oversee a humanitarian portfolio of more than $596 million, until my position was eliminated in the 2025 reduction in force.

Today I am a Policy Analyst at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), where I lead policy analysis on humanitarian protection across Asia and the Middle East, edit our monthly Policy and Advocacy Newsletter, and lead our Third Country Deportations Tracker. Outside of work I lead The Refugee Bureau, a volunteer project documenting the history of the State Department's refugee bureau, and I serve on the board of the Karen Community Farm, a refugee-led farm outside Raleigh, North Carolina.

Experience

  1. 2026–present

    Policy Analyst · U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)

    Washington, DC

    Lead policy analysis and advocacy on humanitarian protection across Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, and represent USCRI in coalitions with partners including Refugees International and Human Rights First. Edit the monthly Policy and Advocacy Newsletter and lead the Third Country Deportations Tracker.

  2. 2025

    Foreign Affairs Officer, Syria Response Team · U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration

    Washington, DC

    Managed and evaluated a portfolio of humanitarian programs inside Syria, and helped oversee more than $596 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Syria response. Coordinated with interagency colleagues, the United Nations, and the Red Cross. My position was eliminated in the 2025 reduction in force.

  3. 2023–2024

    Program Specialist, Division of Refugee Services · U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement

    Washington, DC

    Managed, monitored, and evaluated the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program, providing technical assistance to grantees including resettlement agencies, and built the program's monitoring toolkit. Led an innovation team that built an AI chatbot prototype for grant applicants, and designed an ORR Programs Dashboard with the Monitoring, Evaluation and Analysis team.

  4. 2022–2023

    Project Manager, Climate Fellows Program · University of Virginia Environmental Institute

    Charlottesville, VA

    Managed a fellowship program building a diverse cohort of researchers and practitioners working on equitable climate resilience.

  5. 2017–2022

    Country Manager, Tanzania (earlier, Project Coordinator, Türkiye) · Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

    Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Istanbul, Türkiye

    Led a team of 30 local staff, including 7 direct reports, which grew to between 100 and 400+ field mappers for national-scale projects. I was responsible for strategy, operations, security, staff development, donor reporting, and business development across projects in Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Before that, coordinated a State Department–funded project in Istanbul mapping services for Syrian refugees.

  6. 2011–2013

    Community Development Volunteer · Peace Corps

    Irbid and Mafraq, Jordan

    Taught English in public schools and supported Palestinian and Syrian communities, leading projects including building a computer lab and a boys' leadership camp.

  7. 2010–2011

    Project Manager, Coalition for Refugee Resettlement · AmeriCorps VISTA

    Roanoke, VA

    Directed more than ten education programs for refugee families in Roanoke, including ESL, citizenship workshops, tutoring, and agricultural training, and managed a large base of student and community volunteers.

Earlier roles
  • 2016Graduate intern, UNHCR Ankara
  • 2016Graduate intern, Refugees International
  • 2009–2010Intern, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
  • 2009Resettlement intern, Refugee and Empowerment Services, Dallas
  • 2007Volunteer, International Rescue Committee, Dallas

Projects

  • Thumbnail for AI chatbot for federal grant applicants

    2023–2024 · Office of Refugee Resettlement (HHS) · Innovation team lead

    AI chatbot for federal grant applicants

    I led an innovation team at ORR that built one of the agency's first AI chatbots, a prototype designed to help organizations understand and apply for complex federal funding opportunities. The goal was to make ORR grants more accessible to smaller and community-based organizations that don't have grant writers on staff.

  • Thumbnail for Third Country Deportations map

    2026 · Independent (unofficial) · Builder

    Third Country Deportations map

    An interactive map I built to track U.S. deportations of people to countries other than their own. It grew out of my work leading USCRI's Third Country Deportations Tracker. This is an unofficial personal demo, not a USCRI product.

  • Thumbnail for Open Skies Fellows

    2020–2022 · Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and OpenMap Development Tanzania · Co-founder and lead

    Open Skies Fellows

    I co-founded Open Skies Fellows, a technology fellowship that trains young East Africans to use frontier technologies, such as drones, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, lithium-ion power packs, and hydrological modeling, for social impact. I led programming in Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo while seconded from HOT to OpenMap Development Tanzania, a Tanzanian organization, to carry out their vision.

More projects

  • Thumbnail for The Refugee Bureau and PRM History Project

    2026–present · Volunteer project · Founder and Editor

    The Refugee Bureau and PRM History Project

    I lead a volunteer project documenting the institutional history of the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and publish our work on The Refugee Bureau, a Substack newsletter. I coordinate volunteer contributors and student interns from Georgetown and Indiana University.

  • Thumbnail for Ron Evans Photography

    2026 · Personal project · Designer and builder

    Ron Evans Photography

    I designed and built ronevansphotographer.com, a professional portfolio site for my father, photographer Ron Evans. It runs on Next.js with a Sanity content management system and is hosted on Vercel, all on free tiers, so there are no hosting or software costs. The site has series-based galleries with custom layouts, a searchable catalog of his photography library that imports from a Google Sheet, a books showcase, a store page, a contact form, and a password-protected upload page so he can add and manage his own work.

  • Thumbnail for Public Servants | The People Who Kept Diplomacy Working

    2025 · AFGE · Writer and co-producer

    Public Servants | The People Who Kept Diplomacy Working

    On July 11, 2025, more than 1,350 career civil servants were handed Reduction in Force notices and escorted out of the State Department. I was one of them. I wrote the request for proposals for this documentary and co-produced it to honor those public servants and to show the public who they were.

  • 2025 · U.S. Department of State · Foreign Affairs Officer

    Syria humanitarian portfolio

    On the Syria Response Team, I managed and evaluated humanitarian programs inside Syria, and helped oversee more than $596 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance to the Syria response. Much of the job was humanitarian diplomacy with UN agencies, the Red Cross, and interagency partners in a fast-changing security environment.

  • 2023–2024 · Office of Refugee Resettlement · Program Specialist

    ORR Programs Dashboard and RAPP monitoring toolkit

    I designed an ORR Programs Dashboard with ORR's Monitoring, Evaluation and Analysis team to help evaluate refugee resettlement programs. For the Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program, I also built a monitoring toolkit, including a theory of change, logic model, and outcomes and indicators.

  • 2022–2023 · University of Virginia Environmental Institute · Project Manager

    UVA Climate Fellows Program

    I managed the Climate Fellows Program, building a diverse cohort of researchers and practitioners working on equitable climate resilience.

  • 2018–2022 · Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and OMDTZ · Country Manager

    Ramani Huria and OpenMap Development Tanzania

    Ramani Huria is a community-based mapping project in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that builds flood resilience in communities across the city. It has trained teams of local university students and community members from throughout Dar es Salaam to create highly detailed maps of the most flood-prone areas of the city.

  • 2019–2020 · American Geographical Society · Fellow

    EthicalGEO Fellowship

    I was selected as an EthicalGEO Fellow by the American Geographical Society for work on land rights in Tanzania with HOT and OpenMap Development Tanzania. My project was a pilot in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that used a dual-frequency GPS sensor to create highly accurate surveys in an informal settlement. It could empower a local community in Tanzania, and could also be a pathway for people around the world without legal titles to their land.

  • 2017–2018 · Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team · Project Coordinator

    Mapping services for Syrian refugees in Istanbul

    I coordinated a State Department–funded project to create detailed maps of services for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, to support more effective advocacy, service delivery, and integration with host communities. I built relationships with local refugee communities and partners, developed trainings, and handled reporting to the donor.

  • 2018 · Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team · Lead author

    Participatory Mapping Toolkit: A Guide for Refugee Contexts

    I was the lead author of HOT's guide to participatory mapping with refugee communities, which grew out of our service mapping work in Türkiye and similar work in Uganda.

  • 2011–2013 · Peace Corps Jordan · Community Development Volunteer

    Walking Jordan, and Jordan Walk Tales

    During my Peace Corps service I taught in public schools in Mafraq and Irbid, helped build a computer lab, ran a boys' leadership camp, and walked across Jordan with a donkey. Afterward, I co-authored a bilingual English–Arabic travel book about walking from the Red Sea to the southern border of Syria.

Writing

Policy analysis (USCRI)

The Refugee Bureau

A volunteer project documenting the institutional history of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, published as a Substack newsletter.

Earlier writing

Also

Board member, Karen Community Farm, a refugee-led farm outside Raleigh, NC (2026–present) · Graduate, Sorensen Institute Political Leaders Program, UVA (2023) · Certified drone pilot · Certified Grants Officer Representative (State Department) · Virginia Governor’s Volunteerism and Community Service Award (2011) · Languages: English (native), Levantine Arabic (conversational), Turkish (intermediate), and basic Swahili, Spanish, and French