Thomas Simsarian Dolan, Ph.D.
Simsar Strategy takes its name and inspiration from the word simsar — a term shared across Arabic, Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, and even French and Italian — to describe historic intermediaries and brokers who facilitated exchange across the Middle East and the Mediterranean world. Part translator, part fixer, part trusted insider, the simsar connected people and institutions across boundaries that most could not navigate. The name also reflects my own family history: I am named after my great-grandfather, Tomas Simsarian, who survived the Armenian Genocide and rebuilt his life in the United States. His fluency across languages, cultures, and commercial worlds was not merely professional — it was inscribed in our surname and part of what enabled him to survive when many less fortunate did not. This awareness of both privilege and injustice drives my work today.
I work at the intersection of Middle Eastern studies, public policy, and applied strategy. As faculty in Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory and a Fulbright scholar, I have dedicated my life to helping people navigate complex and challenging conversations around the Middle East and its peoples.
My experience spans academic, public, and policy contexts: teaching at universities across the United States and the Middle East, publishing widely in academic and public venues—including the New York Times, NPR, Newsweek, CNN, and Variety—and lecturing across academic, nonprofit, corporate, and cultural institutions. I have translated this firsthand expertise into practice by writing data and demographic policy for Los Angeles County, providing expert testimony to the U.S. Census, and contributing to legislation and curriculum in California, New York, and Georgia.
I am currently at work on three book projects: a monograph on race, diaspora and the making of the modern Middle East, a history of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the world’s largest Armenian philanthropic organization, and a historically grounded book on Armenian foodways.