Dan Keesey

Dan Keesey is a Program Officer for Freedom House’s Asia Programs, and is an international development professional with six plus years of experience working with various Washington, D.C.-based NGOs. Since 2022, Dan has managed the Youth Empowerment Program and Diaspora Youth Action Grants awards, a subsection of the USAID-funded Asia Religious and Ethnic Freedom award, which supports marginalized ethnic minority diaspora youth from China to build their organizational and technical capacity to address pressing community needs. Since 2023, Dan has also provided support on the DRL-funded Indo-Pacific Center for Civil Society Resilience program designed to counter digital authoritarianism and bolster resilience to disinformation in Indo-Pacific countries. Previously, Dan worked with the International Republican Institute as the Program Officer for Generation Democracy—a global network that connects, equips, and empowers 327 youth leaders from 81 countries to build resilient and inclusive democracies, as well as supported programs building youth, women, and marginalized community inclusion in Thailand and Malaysia. Dan graduated from the School of International Service at American University in 2017, and studied for one year at Peking University in Beijing in a social science and Mandarin language immersion program. He also founded his university’s chapter of Project Pengyou—a cross-cultural network dedicated to establishing connections between Chinese and American students.