

My name is Sarah Fathallah (pronounced sārah fatḥ allāh), otherwise known as سارة فتح الله or ⵙⴰⵔⴰ ⴼⵜⵃⴰⵍⵍⴰⵃ.
I am a Moroccan turned American non-binary femme. My pronouns are they/them and she/her.
I live in Oakland, which sits in the territory of Huchiun, a territory that I acknowledge is a part of the unceded land of the Lisjan Ohlone people.
I am a freelance social designer, researcher, and educator, who specializes in applying participatory design to the social sector. I have worked on projects of all sizes with non-profits, governments, and social enterprises, on topics ranging from civil and human rights, to healthcare and education, financial inclusion and consumer protection, and media development. My clients have included the International Domestic Workers Federation, the International Rescue Committee, Open Society Foundations, and Population Services International, to name a few. My design work has been honored by the Core77 Design Awards, the International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), ONE Prize, and the GSMA mWomen Design Challenge.
I co-founded Design Gigs for Good, a job board listing opportunities at the intersection of design and social impact. I am a graduate of Sciences Po Paris, where I studied International Business and Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Affairs. I also studied design innovation at the Paris Est d.school, User Experience design at General Assembly, and participatory design at MIT.
In the "Media"
- Trauma-Informed Design + Participatory Design Perils + Research with Vulnerable Populations, Design Thinking 101 Podcast
- Design for Good: Tackling Social Issues with Sarah Fathallah, UX Design Institute
- Sarah Fathallah on Speaking as a Means of Critical Reflection, Women Talk Design
- Every Space is Political, People Nerds
- Design Research, Conversations on Design Podcast
- Design for Good, Designer&Designer Podcast
- Women of Design, IxDA San Francisco
- Designing for Social Impact, Communication Arts Magazine
- Interview with Sarah Fathallah, AIGA EMERGE
- 5 Recent Reads We Loved (And You May Have Missed!), DAI Digital
- SHEDesigner interview [in Arabic], Al Ordon Alyoom
- The New Movement Recruiting Designers for Social Good, Coding It Forward
- Testimonials of ME310 Paris alumni: Sarah Fathallah [in French], Paris Est d.school
- OpenIDEATOR Insight: Sarah Fathallah, OpenIDEO
Country Work Experience
Canada, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, the United States.


Teaching
Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension, teaching courses on Service Design and User Experience (UX) Research.
Visiting faculty at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), co-teaching the "Designing for Behaviour and Impact" course.
Design coach for a number of Stanford d.school courses: Design for Extreme Affordability; Intro to Legal Design; CS+Social Good; Prototyping Access to Justice; Justice + Poverty Innovation.
Guest lecturer at:
- Arizona State University
- Georgetown University
- Glasgow School of Art, The Innovation School
- Northwestern University in San Francisco
- Pratt Institute
- School of Visual Arts, Design for Social Innovation
- Stanford University's d.school
- The Maryland Institute College of Art
- The Paris Est d.school
- UC Berkeley's Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation
Speaking
Speaker, panelist, or workshop facilitator at the following events:
- Better World by Design, Providence (Sep 2012)
- TEDxDUMBO, Brooklyn (Oct 2012)
- Mobile World Congress, Barcelona (Feb 2013)
- Design Thinking: DC, Washington DC (Mar 2014)
- Service Experience Chicago, Virtual (Feb 2016)
- Service Design Global Conference, Amsterdam (Oct 2016)
- UX Burlington, Burlington (Jun 2017)
- General Assembly, San Francisco (Jun 2017)
- SHEDesigner, Amman (Jan 2018)
- Design Research, Melbourne (Mar 2018)
- Lab@OPM's Summer Design School, Oakland (Jun 2018)
- Empathy in Design and Leadership, Berkeley (Oct 2018)
- Design in the Social Sector, Beirut (Dec 2018)
- SF Design Week, San Francisco (Jun 2019)
- Joint Futures Conference, Helsinki (Sep 2019)
- Design for Development, Virtual (Mar 2020)
- Advancing Research, Virtual (Mar 2020)
- CIID Lightning Talks, Virtual (May 2020)
- Restorative Design Conference, Virtual (Oct 2020)
- Community Engagement Forum, Virtual (Oct 2020)
- Women Talk Design Speaker Stories, Virtual (Dec 2020)
- Race In The Field, Virtual (Jan 2021)
- World Design Organization PepTalk, Virtual (Mar 2021)
- Design Justice Network Member Stories, Virtual (Mar 2021)
- Interventions: Disrupt, Virtual (Apr 2021)
- Confab: Content Strategy for Change, Virtual (May 2021)
- DotGov Design Conference, Virtual (May 2021)
- HmntyCntrd, Virtual (July 2021)
- Radical Research Summit, Virtual (September 2021)
- Rosenfeld Videoconference, Virtual (October 2021)
- Critical UX, Virtual (November 2021)
Writing
I am the co-author of two books:
- When It Rains, It Pours: Challenges and Opportunities in Myanmar's Sesame Value Chain, Field Institute, 2019
- Away From Home: Youth Experiences of Institutional Placements in Foster Care, Think Of Us, 2021
I have also co-authored the following publications:
- Embracing Informality: Designing Financial Services for China's Marginalized, Reboot, 2012
- Better Insights for Better Products: Lessons Learned from 3 Applied Product Innovation Projects, CGAP, 2013
- Coordination Structures for Financial Inclusion Strategies and Reforms, World Bank Group, 2013
- National Financial Inclusion Strategies Coordination Structures: Country Examples, World Bank Group, 2014
- Establishing a Financial Consumer Protection Department: Key Observations and Lessons Learned in Five Case Study Countries, World Bank Group, 2014
- National Financial Inclusion Strategies, World Bank Group, 2015
- Template for the Design of a National Financial Inclusion Strategy, World Bank Group, 2016
- Abolish The Cop In Your (Designer's) Head: Unraveling the Links Between Design and Policing, Design Museum Magazine, 2021
To explore my writing, including pieces for GOOD Magazine and Benevolent Media, head on over to my Medium blog.
Say Hello!
I'm interested in opportunities to contribute to social impact efforts through work engagements, speaking, teaching, or writing. Email me, or find me on Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, or Women Talk Design.