Susan Antolin (EdD ’22) Named 2024 Steinhardt Visionary

Susan Antolin (EdD ’22, Leadership and Innovation) has been named 2024’s Steinhardt Visionary as part of the inaugural cohort of Spirit of Steinhardt alumni award winners.

Antolin began her career as a teacher at a private, all-girls high school in San Diego, where she worked with a diverse student body, including many students who crossed the U.S.–Mexico border each day to attend school. 

“I applied the skills I gained from my master's in curriculum development from the University of San Diego in various roles at my school,” says Antolin. “This experience deepened my commitment to supporting students from different backgrounds and motivated me to pursue further education. I wanted to engage with leaders and experts across sectors to create meaningful change on a larger scale, which led me to the EdD in Leadership and Innovation at Steinhardt.” 

A passionate advocate and leader dedicated to empowering Afghan refugee women and girls on a global scale, Antolin is the executive director for Women for Afghan Women (WAW). WAW is the largest NGO dedicated to supporting this population, providing critical support in the U.S. and Afghanistan such as access to healthcare, legal aid, shelter, and educational opportunities.

“In the U.S., we work primarily with refugees, while our team in Afghanistan works with citizens,” says Antolin, herself an Afghan American and the daughter of refugees. "One of the things I learned while obtaining my EdD at NYU Steinhardt is how to run a global organization while balancing teams in countries with some of the most advanced infrastructures, such as the U.S., and others with significantly less development, such as Afghanistan. As a leader, I have to balance that disparity and recognize the different needs not only of the clients we’re serving, but also my staff as well.”

Another element of her NYU Steinhardt experience that Antolin found formative was that for the first time in any place she’d ever been, she could embrace her true identity.

“My whole life, I felt like I needed to hide my Afghan roots, especially because of the way Afghanistan had been portrayed in the media,” says Antolin. “As an Afghan American woman, I was able to embrace all those parts of myself within my cohort and talk about my challenges around representation with my peers. Being able to embrace my identity has enabled me to provide a safe space and make a difference for women and girls then, now, and in the future.”

Prior to WAW, Antolin was director of community and mentorship for 30 Birds Foundation, which helped evacuate and continues to support a group of 450 Afghans from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, predominantly schoolgirls and their families.

“30 Birds evacuated many of these refugees to Canada, where I helped build support programs from scratch to help with everything from English language proficiency and mental health to building pathways for post-secondary education,” says Antolin.

When she thinks about her award as the Steinhardt Visionary, Antolin again goes back to her time at Steinhardt. 

“When we would talk about being a leader who is a visionary, the first thing I would think of is someone who can see opportunities beyond what already exists, someone who is not afraid to take risks,” says Antolin. “For me, I’m working with one of the most vulnerable populations in the whole world at this moment in history. It’s my role to transform situations in which many people feel hopeless into opportunities for change. I work to identify resources, connections, and pathways that enable women and girls to envision lives for themselves that they might not have thought possible." 

Antolin is also the co-founder of Advancing Girls, a platform offering research-driven resources for mentors worldwide, and serves on the board of STEER for Student Athletes in New York City.