Jaffer briefed National Press Foundation fellows in April 2024: Women in Politics: Sadaf Jaffer’s Departure Highlights Rising Threats to Legislators. 

Dr. Sadaf Jaffer is a transformative leader with 20 years of public engagement, higher education, and government expertise. She is dedicated to public service with a focus on mobilizing diverse stakeholders to address the needs of women, minorities, and economically under-resourced communities.

An Assemblywoman representing New Jersey’s 16th Legislative District, Jaffer advocates for the best interests of NJ’s 9.2 million residents with special attention to her district’s 230,000 constituents. She has championed increased funding for 9-1-1 call centers, teen suicide prevention, public health infrastructure, and translation services. Her legislative accomplishments include the College Mental Health Services Act, New Jersey Child Tax Credit, laws on election integrity, transportation, reproductive healthcare, and gun safety. She bolstered representation for women and minorities in politics as the first Asian American woman (with Ellen Park and Shama Haider) and the first Muslim American (with Shama Haider) to serve in the New Jersey Legislature.

Prior to joining the legislature, Jaffer served two terms as mayor of Montgomery Township, New Jersey. In January of 2019, she shattered glass ceilings as the first South Asian American woman to serve as mayor in New Jersey and the first Muslim woman mayor of a municipality in the United States. Her signature initiatives included creating and implementing a crisis communications plan to help Montgomery maintain some of the lowest COVID-19 infection and fatality rates in the state, leading the design and construction of a new municipal center and library, building trust and understanding by coordinating meetings for Black community members with the Township’s police leadership, and inaugurating a Youth Leadership Council.

Jaffer is also a researcher and lecturer at Princeton University, where she teaches courses on South Asian, Islamic, and Asian American Studies. Her research focuses on secular and feminist thought in Muslim contexts through analysis of literature and the arts. She has published in the Journal of Women’s History, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Huffington Post, Altmuslimah, and American Kahani.

Jaffer serves on numerous boards and commissions including for the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, Oxfam America, and the Princeton University Art Museum. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and obtained her PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University with a secondary field in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.