Sadaf Jaffer

Sadaf Jaffer (born February 19, 1983) is an American politician and scholar. She is the Mayor of Montgomery Township, Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, having taken office on January 3, 2019. She is the first woman of Pakistani descent to serve as mayor of a town in New Jersey, and the first Muslim woman to serve as a mayor in the United States. Jaffer was first elected to Montgomery's township committee in 2017. She is a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

Sadaf Jaffer
Mayor of Montgomery Township, New Jersey
Assumed office
January 3, 2019
Personal details
Born (1983-02-19) February 19, 1983[1]
Chicago, Illinois
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Daniel Sheffield
Children1
ResidenceMontgomery Township, New Jersey
Alma materSchool of Foreign Service
Harvard University (PhD)

Early life, family and education

Jaffer was born in Chicago to Muslim immigrants. Her mother was born in Karachi, Pakistan and her father was born in Aden, Yemen.[2][3] Her ancestors are originally from the Kutch region of India.

She attended the Latin School of Chicago, earned a bachelor's degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and a PhD at Harvard University.[4][5]

In 2011, Jaffer married Daniel Sheffield,[6] an assistant professor in the Near Eastern Studies department at Princeton. They had met at Harvard and have one child.[7][8]

Mayorality

In 2016, Jaffer launched an unsuccessful write-in campaign. The following year she won a seat on the township committee on the Democratic ticket. In 2019, she was appointed to the position as mayor by her fellow committee members. She was sworn in on January 3, 2019, becoming the first woman of South Asian descent to serve as mayor of a town in New Jersey, and the first Muslim woman to serve as a mayor in the United States.

References
  1. "Sadaf F. Jaffer – candidate for Montgomery Township Committee". www.ggcnj.org. 19 October 2017. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  2. Olivia Rizzo (May 21, 2019). "First female Muslim mayor in the U.S. calls this N.J. town home". New Jersey On-Line LLC. Retrieved May 21, 2019. She is now the first female South Asian mayor of a New Jersey municipality and the first female Muslim mayor in the state. She is also believed to be the first female Muslim mayor, female Yemeni-American mayor, first Pakistani-American mayor and first female South Asian-American mayor first in the nation, according to Religionnews.com.
  3. Kuruvilla, Carol (January 31, 2019). "New Jersey's First South Asian Woman Mayor Is Breaking Boundaries". HuffPost. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  4. Deak, Mike. "Montgomery: Sadaf Jaffer becomes NJ's first female South Asian mayor". Courier News. Somerville, New Jersey. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  5. "Sadaf Jaffer sworn in as first South Asian-American woman mayor in New Jersey". New India Times. Parikh Worldwide Media. January 4, 2019. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  6. "Sadaf Jaffer, Daniel Sheffield: Weddings". 27 May 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  7. de La Bruyere, Josephine (January 13, 2019). "Postdoc becomes NJ's first female South Asian mayor". The Daily Princetonian. Princeton, New Jersey. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  8. Sharma, Ahmed (January 30, 2019). "South Asian American woman breaks boundaries with historic mayoral election". News 4 San Antonio. Sinclair Broadcast Group. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
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