Sarah Leah Whitson is an American human rights lawyer and the founding executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a role she has held since 2020. Prior to this, she served as the director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) from 2004 to 2020.
During her tenure at Human Rights Watch, Whitson published articles on the Middle East in international and regional publications.