Jefferson Ren

Jefferson Ren was a junior at Rice University when he read Tom Farr's World of Faith and Freedom and subsequently joined the Religious Freedom Institute as an intern for the Middle East Action Team in the summer of 2020. During that summer, he wrote pieces explaining Iraq's power sharing system between different ethno-religious groups as well as on the situation facing Syria's religious minorities from the ongoing civil war. Working closely with Jeremy Barker and David Trimble, Jefferson realized the importance of what it truly meant to defend religious freedom "for everyone, everywhere."

After RFI, Jefferson graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and Religion from Rice University and then from the Harvard Kennedy School with a Master in Public Policy (MPP). He has continued his passion for religious freedom throughout his studies. At the Kennedy School, he wrote a Policy Analysis Exercise for the Abrahamic Family House (a multi faith center consisting of a church, mosque, and synagogue in the heart of Abu Dhabi) on how to develop metrics of progress for religious tolerance and even visited the AFH in-person May of 2023. In 2022 and again in 2024, Jefferson volunteered at the International Religious Freedom Summit.

Jefferson currently lives in Washington D.C. and works for the Afghanistan Assumptions Project, an independent, research-based project that explores the 20-year US engagement in Afghanistan and the critical assumptions that drove US policy. He also is an evening student pursuing his J.D. at Georgetown Law. He credits RFI for being the catalyst for turning an interest in religious pluralism into a career path focused on defending the first principles of religious freedom.