Dr. Sami Atallah is the Founding Director of The Policy Initiative. 

He is trained in economics and political science, and led several policy studies on political and social sectarianism, the performance of parliament, government monitoring, electoral behavior, the role of municipalities in dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis, municipal finance, economic diversification and industrial policy, and oil and gas governance. 

He has several policy and academic publications. In addition to his research, Atallah served on the committee established by the Lebanese prime minister to draft a decentralization law and participated in the deliberations of the parliamentary committee which reviewed the draft law. 

He holds an MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University, an MA in Quantitative Methods from Columbia University, and a PhD in Politics from New York University.