Michael Albin: Mike Albin retired from the Library of Congress after 27 years of service during which he held a number of positions including 10 years as Director of the Library of Congress Overseas Office, Cairo Egypt. He has lived in Iraq for over five years, first as a teacher in Baghdad College and later as a Fulbright research scholar. Mike spent most of his career in acquisitions for the Library, but he also served in the Asian Division and was Acting Director for Acquisitions and Overseas Operations. He served the US Army in Iraq as a member of the Human Terrain System.  He currently is writing a book on tribal leadership. He has served as officer of several academic associations.

Michael Hopper: Senior Librarian, Humanities and Social Sciences Collection Development, Widener Library, Harvard University and former Head of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Division, Michael Hopper has worked with the Assyrian community in the United States to build the Modern Assyrian Collection at Harvard University Library into the foremost concentration of such materials worldwide.  His dedication has elicited three endowments from the Assyrian community to support such collecting, cataloging, preservation, and digitization. Eden Naby Frye and he researched and mounted a major exhibit of Harvard’s holdings (books, periodicals, photographs, and ephemera) in 1999 at Widener Library and produced the accompanying catalogue, The Assyrian Experience: Sources for the Study of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Amin Karimpour: Born in Tehran, Iran and living in Massachusetts, Amin’s ethnic background being half Kurdish makes him particularly sensitive to the historical problems associated with minority cultural preservation. His background as an IT Professional adds to his effectiveness as advisor on the NFAFC online activities and to discussion of ways in which the modern Assyrian presence can be enhanced in the internet era. He is strongly focused on computing application to businesses and organizations.  He is an Adjunct Faculty at College of Professional Studies in Northeastern University Graduate for courses in Analytics and Informatics.

Susan Nicholas: Born and raised in the California Bay Area and trained in zoology at University of California -Davis, Susan spent 25 years working in the biotech and pharmaceutical sector, the last 10 years in oncology clinical trials. Now retired, Susan enjoys research on family and individual ancestry evidence. She has traced her own Danish, Norwegian and other ancestors through the many kinds of records available online such as ship’s manifests and other tools at various kinds of archives. She assisted in uncovering the fascinating background of Samuel Aiwas Jacobs (1890-1971), an accomplished Assyrian who was the publisher of e.e. cummings as well as the holder of eleven patents. She also found the fourth generation family of Dr. Joseph David Joseph who donated much of the archival materials for the traveling exhibit (2022-25) supported in part by the NFAFC.

Members - Ex Officio

President: Nels MN Frye – Nels Mishael Naby Frye is a business consultant, editor, and entrepreneur. Born in Boston, and named after his two grandfathers, one Assyrian and the other Swedish, he has maintained a strong interest in his Assyrian heritage and wishes to encourage ways in which Assyrian culture can be made relevant to his generation and those younger.

Treasurer: Eden Naby Frye – Eden Naby Frye, a cultural historian of the Middle East and Central Asia, originally from the Urmia village of Golpashan, was raised in Philadelphia, and has lived in Massachusetts since her marriage to Richard Nelson Frye, the Agha Khan Professor of Iranian at Harvard University. The establishment of NFAFC, a privately funded 501(3)C organization, grew out of her desire to enhance, as well as preserve, the Aramaic language-based culture of the Assyrians, in honor of the generations of Assyrians who consciously or not, contributed to her knowledge and respect for the diverse Assyrian communities.

Clerk/Website Manager: Mary Naby – Working for over 15 years at World Wildlife Fund in Washington, DC, Mary has lived in Panama, Thailand, Japan, and the US. Her father is Assyrian and mother Thai.  She is devoted to non-profit causes and finds working with the Assyrian community in the DC area rewarding and work with the NFAFC challenging but stimulating. She supports Assyrian language arts, particularly critical in retaining Aramaic as a vibrant language.