Sabiha Afrin

Sabiha Afrin leads digital marketing for American University’s School of Public Affairs, where she built a small but mighty team from the ground up. She oversees SEO/AEO, paid media, Salesforce Marketing, email, and AI workflows across the school’s degree programs and policy centers.

She started her career on the agency side and now directs agencies from the other chair. After seven years in education and content marketing, she knows what works, what does not, and what can be handed off to technology so her team has more time to focus on new ideas.

Marketing gets people to notice you. Branding gives them a reason to remember you. Sabiha's work sits somewhere between the two. She is interested in how technology can support both, and she builds her own agents and automations without an engineering team or a dedicated budget.

This year, she has led sessions across the AU community on using AI in marketing and personal branding for graduate students, faculty, and staff. She also founded Branding Inward, a free AI brand strategy suite for people who find most branding advice too loud. She has spoken about micro-influencer programs and social strategy at higher education and marketing conferences and has published her research in a peer reviewed journal.