January 2021
We are pleased to congratulate our friend and colleague Nisreen Abu Al Shaikh for being awarded the W.F. Albright Service Award by the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) at the most recent annual meeting.
The W.F. Albright Service award “serves to honor an individual who has shown special support or made outstanding service contributions to one of the overseas centers, ACOR, AIAR, CAARI, or to one of the overseas committees—the Baghdad Committee and the Damascus Committee.” Nisreen has undoubtedly demonstrated such remarkable service to ACOR, for decades. She has served in the role of chief financial officer/deputy director of ACOR since November 2016, as chief financial officer since 2012, and, before that, as financial comptroller since 1995.
As a U.S. nonprofit organization, ACOR keeps books that follow “fund accounting,” a system that emphasizes accountability rather than profitability. As ACOR receives some funding from the U.S. government, it consequently must undergo an annual audit. Nisreen is one of the few financial professionals in Jordan with expertise in the requirements of nonprofit financial reporting. Her expertise helps ACOR navigate the official requirements of both the American and the Jordanian tax and regulatory systems.
Nisreen worked for several years as an accountant for the Shaheen Group in Amman before joining ACOR. Raised in Kuwait, she was educated and attended university there and came to Jordan in 1991 with her family at the time of the first Gulf War. She holds a BSc in accounting from the University of Kuwait and an MS in accounting from the University of Jordan. Inspired by her work involving the many endowed trusts within ACOR, Nisreen is interested in the topic of endowments (waqf) in Islamic law and in the practical application and uses of endowments in Arab history. We are so grateful for her many years of thoughtful and generous service. We thank ASOR as well for choosing to highlight Nisreen’s work and its impact on our shared global scholarly community.
“As a foreigner in Jordan, one needs to learn from others… [Nisreen] provided me with counsel and friendship that made a huge difference to me personally and professionally.”
—ACOR Ambassador Barbara A. Porter, in ACOR Newsletter 32.1 (p. 6)
