Randa Fahmy-Hudome

Joshua S. Fouts is executive director of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, a cross-disciplinary research, teaching and training center run jointly by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and by the USC School of International Relations, a school within the College of Letters, Arts & Sciences. He is director of the "Public Diplomacy in Virtual Worlds" project along with Annenberg School communication professor Douglas Thomas. Prior to joining the Center on Public Diplomacy in 2003, he was co-founder and director of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism & Communication Program, a center for the study of the global impact of the Internet-based journalism on policy, journalism, ethics and society. He was also editor of the program_8364;™s flagship effort, OJR, the Online Journalism Review, which he grew from a small university Web site to an internationally recognized leader in the field of online journalism, read by almost 50,000 readers monthly, rivaling the per article readership of many respectable U.S. newspapers. Before joining USC, Joshua spent half a decade at the Voice of America where he was Deputy Chief-of-Staff. He worked on numerous public diplomacy projects throughout the world, including developing the earliest iterations of the VOA Web site, (what would become voanews.com); public affairs efforts at U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil; negotiations with the former Soviet Republics to lease transmitters formerly used to jam VOA signals; and development of the first ever TV/radio/Internet simulcast to Asia. He has been a Web activist and new technology adopter, creating and running grassroots Web campaigns, including StopOverlay.com a successful effort to stop California phone companies from overlaying and removing community area codes. Among the awards Fouts has received are the Presidential Management Fellowship in 1991, and other distinguished service awards for his work in the U.S. government. In 2001 he was recognized as one of the Digital Coast Top 100 Survivors; of the digital community of the Western United States. Fouts serves on the board of the International Visitors Council of Los Angeles, The UCLA Communications Board, and the Friends of Washoe Foundation. He is on the editorial board of Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media (Sage).

Ms. Freiberg provides clients with the knowledge, experience and judgment gained from playing a range of roles in government, politics and Washington advocacy. She has developed strategies and managed government relations activities for corporate and international entities, in addition to serving in two Democratic administrations and in senior positions on Capitol Hill.

Formerly Ms. Freiberg served as Director of Legislative Affairs for Vice President Albert Gore Jr., managing his relations with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and acting as liaison with the Democratic leadership of both bodies. Earlier in the Clinton Administration she was Director of the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Information Agency and Senior Policy Advisor in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the Department of State.

During the Carter Administration Ms. Freiberg served as Special Assistant for Congressional Liaison in the White House. Previously, she was Chief of Staff to former Congressman Peter W. Rodino (D-NJ), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. In addition, she has worked on presidential campaigns in many capacities.

Ms. Freiberg’s private sector experience includes serving as Senior Vice President with the public affairs firm Gray and Company, later Hill and Knowlton, and as Director of Legislative Affairs for the law firm Winthrop, Stimson, Putnam and Roberts. She also established the Washington office of the Kenetech Corporation, a San Francisco-based energy company.

A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Ms. Freiberg earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan and her master’s degree in Romance Languages at the Ohio State University. For the past several years, she has played an active role as Mentor and Lecturer in the Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute at American University.

Ms. Freiberg currently serves as Senior Vice President of Legislative Strategies, Inc.

Dr. Ellen L. Frost, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for International Economics and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the National Defense University, is an author and frequent speaker on international affairs. Her government experience includes the State Department, the Senate, the Treasury Department, the Defense Department, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, where she served as Counselor (1993-95). She has taught graduate seminars on globalization and development and recently co-edited a two-volume publication on globalization and security for the National Defense University. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the Institute for International Strategic Studies in London, she is currently writing a book on Asian integration.

Barry Fulton is a research professor at George Washington University and former director of GWU’s Public Diplomacy Institute. He is a consultant to the Under Secretary of State for Management, an Associate of Global Business Access, a member of the Board of Directors of Info/Change, and a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs. He recently served on the Defense Science Board Task Force on Managed Information Dissemination. As a career Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Information Agency he served as associate director for information, acting associate director for educational and cultural affairs, and in numerous overseas posts. He is the author of Leveraging Technology in Service of Diplomacy: Innovation in the Department of State and project director of the CSIS Study Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age.

Mary Eleanor Gawronski retired from the Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor. She served in Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Tunisia and Ecuador. In Washington, she served as deputy director of USIA’s Office of European Affairs and as diplomat-in-residence at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, where she taught courses in public diplomacy in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She has completed intensive language study in French, Spanish, Czech and Polish. She is a graduate of George Washington University and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Robert Gosende is associate vice chancellor for international programs for the State University of New York. He served for over 30 years in the Foreign Service of the United States in the U.S. Information Agency and the Department of State before becoming Special Assistant to the Chancellor for International Programs at the State University of New York in December of l998. Mr. Gosende’s overseas experience includes tours of duty as a Cultural Affairs Officer in Libya, Somalia, and Poland, and as Minister-Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs and Director of the U.S. Information Service in the Russian Federation in 1996-98. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to Somalia during the height of the humanitarian crisis in that country in l992-93. He received Presidential Awards from Presidents Bush and Clinton for his service as USIA’s Director for African Affairs and as the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia. Mr. Gosende received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Bruce Gregory is director of the Public Diplomacy Institute at The George Washington University and an adjunct assistant professor of media and public affairs at the University's School of Media and Public Affairs. He is a member of the Defense Science Board's Task Force on Strategic Communication, the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Public Diplomacy, the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs, and the Public Diplomacy Council. He was the Council's executive director from 2001-2004. Gregory served on the National Defense University's faculty from 1998-2001 where he taught courses on information, media, and national security at the National War College. From 1985-1998, he was executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Prior to retiring after 34 years of government service, he served as coordinator on the Department of State's Response to Terrorism Coalition Working Group on Public Diplomacy and as the State Department's executive secretary on the Defense Science Board's 2001 Task Force on Managed Information Dissemination. He has taught public diplomacy also at American University's School of International Service and lectured at the Department of State's Foreign Service Institute, the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Joint Military Intelligence College, and the National Defense University's Information Management Resources College and Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He also compiles an annotated list of public diplomacy books, articles, and websites that is circulated by email approximately once a month. The list is intended for public diplomacy teachers, researchers and others who may be interested. (If you wish to subscribe, send an email to BGregory@gwu.edu.) He is a recipient of the Department of State's Superior Honor Award and was an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. He earned a B.A. in history at Barrington College and an M.A. in international relations at American University's School of International Service.

Executive Director

Ex Officio Board Member

Bob Heath is also Executive Director of the Foreign Affairs Museum Council, a nonprofit dedicated to raising private money to design and build a center of American diplomacy to be located in the Department of State building. In 1997, he completed 27 years with the United States Information Agency (USIA) serving in seven countries on four continents. His last assignment was as Director of the USIS in Ukraine from 1994-1997. During that period, he also served occasionally as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé of the Embassy. Previously, he was Spokesman and Public Affairs Advisor for the U.S. Delegation to the Negotiations on Nuclear and Space Arms in Geneva from 1983-1984 and again from 1989 until the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START I) Treaty in Moscow on July 31, 1991. In addition, he served as Spokesman and Press Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in West Germany; Director of the American Cultural Centers in Cape Town, South Africa, and Karachi, Pakistan and Assistant Information Officer in Kinshasa, Zaire. He served also in Washington as Deputy Director of the Office of Policy Guidance; Senior Policy Officer for Arms Control, Security Issues and European Affairs; Policy Guidance Coordinator; and Regional Projects Coordinator for Africa. He holds a BA in Physical Science from the University of California at Riverside and an MA in International Studies from American University in Washington, DC.

Alan L. Heil, Jr.
Secretary
Board Member

Alan L. Heil Jr. is a retired deputy director of the Voice of America, the nation's largest publicly funded overseas broadcasting network. He is the author of Voice of America: A History (Columbia University, 2003), now in its second printing. His Voice career from 1962 to 1998 included service as chief of the New York and the Middle East bureaus, director of News and Current Affairs of the network, deputy director of programs, 1987-1994 and deputy director 1996-1998. Overseas assignments: Beirut, Cairo and Athens as VOA Middle East correspondent from 1965-1971. Heil was an OSCE election supervisor in Bosnia (1998), Croatia (1999-2000) and Kosovo (2000). He has been a guest on call-in programs for NPR and VOA, and lectured at his Alma Mater, Duke University, and the UNC School of Journalism, the University of Kentucky, George Mason University, Randolph Macon College, Marymount College, Greenville University (N.C.), Elizbethtown College (Pennsylvania) and the University of Florida School of Journalism (Gainesville) and the Arlington based Retirement Learning Institute. Heil is an elder at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church. He is married to Dorothy Finnegan Heil, and has three daughters and eight grandchildren.

Frank Hodsoll currently chairs the Board of the Center for Arts & Culture. He is also a Senior Consultant to the Logistics Management Institute, a member of the National Academy of Public Administration's Performance Consortium Oversight Committee, and a principal of the Council for Excellence in Government. He was previously the first OMB Deputy Director for Management; OMB Executive Associate Director with oversight of the National Security and International Affairs budgets; Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; and Deputy Assistant to President Reagan. As a Foreign Service Officer, Mr. Hodsoll served as Deputy US Special Representative for Non- Proliferation; Director of the State Department's Law of the Sea Office; Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Commerce Department; Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary of Commerce; Special Assistant to the EPA Administrator; and Assistant Political Adviser to SACEUR at SHAPE. Mr. Hodsoll has also served as a county commissioner in Colorado, Co-Chair of the Telecommunications Steering Committee of the National Association of Counties, and a member of the Colorado Governor's management reform group.

Myron "Mike" Hoffmann was a career Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Information Agency for 35 years. He served overseas on three continents, concentrating on East Europe during the Cold War. He also has substantial experience in the Balkans. In Washington, he was deputy associate director and acting associate director for information before retiring with the rank of Minister Counselor. He is a recipient of a Presidential Meritorious Service Award. He has been a consultant to the Department of State on Balkan affairs, and consults on public diplomacy issues and management development.

John Hughes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, former Editor of the Christian Science Monitor, for which he writes a nationally syndicated column. He was recently editor and COO of the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City. He is director of the International Media Studies program at Brigham Young University. He served as Director of Communications and Assistant Secretary-General at the United Nations in 1995. During the administration of Bush Sr., he chaired the Bi-partisan Task Force on the Future of U.S. Government International Broadcasting. He also served as Associate Director of the U. S. Information Agency, director of Voice of America, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs during the Reagan administration. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Joe B. Johnson consults on communication and management for federal government agencies after a career as a U.S. diplomat. Until 2005, Johnson directed the Office of eDiplomacy at the State Department. From 2000 to 2003, he was Principal Deputy Coordinator of the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) and before that, Deputy Director for Public Diplomacy in State's Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau. Johnson served abroad at seven embassies in Western Europe and Latin America. At the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, he directed the Operations Center and the European Academic Exchanges staff. He served on detail in the State Department's Press Office and in the Office of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. In 1979-80, Johnson spent a year on Capitol Hill as a Congressional Fellow. Johnson is from Dallas, Texas. He holds academic degrees in journalism and political science from Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas, and an Accreditation in Public Relations by the Universal Accreditation Board.

Stephen Johnson is currently a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and is thus on-leave as a member of the Council. He is a former State Department officer who has worked at the bureaus of Inter-American Affairs and Public Affairs and was the Senior Policy Analyst for Latin America at The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Johnson analyzes counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism policy in the Western Hemisphere, as well as public diplomacy issues. At the State Department Johnson served as a writer and researcher, later as director of the Central America Working Group, and as the chief of the Editorial Division in the Bureau of Public Affairs. A former Air Force officer, he piloted tanker aircraft and also served as Assistant Air Force Attaché in Honduras. Later, as a member of the Air Force Reserve, he served as a public affairs officer and strategic planner in the Office of Public Affairs for the Secretary of the Air Force and was also a public affairs officer for the U.S. Southern Command. Johnson, who has lived in El Salvador, Honduras and Uruguay, earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Wyoming and a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University. Johnson has observed elections in Guatemala, Mexico, and Nicaragua. He has spoken before the Council of the Americas and at numerous conferences in the United States and in Latin America. He has contributed columns to the Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald, National Review Online, Washington Times, Long Island Newsday, Diario Las Américas, El Comercio (Peru), and Venezuela Analítica. His broadcast appearances include CNN, Fox News, National Public Radio, BBC, RCN-TV (Colombia), CBN, WorldNet TV, and the Voice of America.

Jeff Jones is a Senior Associate at the global consulting firm of Booz Allen Hamilton and is currently on leave with the Council. He spent the previous three and a half years as former Senior Director, Strategic Communication and Information, National Security Council, The White House. In that capacity, he worked in the Office of Combating Terrorism and the Defense Policy and Arms Control Directorate. He assisted the President’s National Security Advisor in formulating, developing, coordinating, advancing and implementing U.S. policies and objectives related to the global war on terrorism, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director, Defense Policy and Arms Control in Iraq-related and other information strategy issues, and the Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications. During his 30-year military career, Jones last served as United States Defense Representative, Defense and Army Attaché, Paris, France from 1998-2001. He served as Chief, Special Operations Division and Assistant Deputy Director for Operations, Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, DC from 1995-1998, where he was the principal advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on counterterrorism, countering the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, consequence management, the full spectrum of special operations, combat search and rescue, psychological operations, civil affairs, humanitarian/disaster assistance and humanitarian de-mining. Jones commanded the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne), U.S. Army and U.S. Special Operations Commands headquartered at Ft Bragg, North Carolina, from 1993 until 1995. Prior to brigade-level command, he served on the National Security Council during the previous Bush Administration from 1991 until 1993 as Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control. During this period, he authored the 1993 National Security Strategy of the United States, helped craft President Bush’s nuclear arms control initiative, led White House support for the establishment of the George Marshall European Center for Security Studies, and developed peacekeeping initiatives for the United Nations, NATO, Somalia, Bosnia and Cambodia. From 1987 until 1989, Jones was the Joint Staff Representative to the U.S.-USSR Nuclear and Space Negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland and as Chief, International Military Affairs, U.S. Army Western Command, from 1985-1987. Jeff served with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in Lebanon from 1983-1984 as Operations Officer, Observer Group Lebanon where he was responsible for all operational interactions between UN unarmed observers from 16 countries, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the Lebanese Army, the ICRC and UNRWA.

Currently a Senior fellow at Harvard University. Mr. Kalb had a long and distinguished career in broadcast journalism. Additional information is available on the Harvard website.

Jerrold Keilson has spent twenty-five years working in international affairs.  He joined Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI), an international professional services firm that works in economic development, conflict management, democratic institution building, agricultural development and natural resources management in February 2005. He is director of the Office of Recruitment. Previously, he was vice president and director of business development for Creative Associates International, Inc., a professional services firm that works in basic education and civil society capacity-building. From 1994-2002 he worked for World Learning, Inc (formerly the Experiment in International Living), first as director of training and exchange services and for five years as director of program development.  Prior to that he was employed by Agricultural Cooperative Development International (ACDI), where he directed training programs in Central Europe and the Middle East.  At Delphi International (1986-1993), a non-profit organization that implements the United States Information Agency's International Visitor Program, he designed and directed exchange programs.  Jerrold began his career in international affairs as a Foreign Service officer with the State Department.  He was posted to Tijuana, Mexico; Melbourne, Australia; and Nouakchott, Mauritania.  He received his M.A. in history from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his B.A. in history from Clark University. Jerrold also is an adjunct lecturer at American University’s School of Public Affairs where he teaches graduate courses in development management and international organizations.

Jerrold’s avocation is public diplomacy; he has published several articles on the history and impact of citizen diplomacy, training and exchange programs. He is a board member of the National Council for International Visitors, an umbrella organization that supports community-based international exchange and citizen diplomacy programs in ninety-five cities and towns across the United States, and a Fellow with the Foreign Policy Association.

Kenton Keith is the Senior Vice of the Meridian International Center and Chair of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange. From November 2001 to January 2002, he was appointed the Department of State’s Special Envoy to Islamabad and served as the spokesperson on Coalition activity in Afghanistan. Formerly, he was a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Information Agency. In 1992, he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Qatar. Subsequently he headed USIA’s office that supervised all agency operations in the Near East and South Asia. He has received two Presidential meritorious service awards and various individual and group superior and meritorious honor awards, including one for his work at the 1991 Middle East peace conference in Madrid. He is a Chevalier in the French Order of Arts and Letters, an honor conferred by the French government in recognition of his contribution to cultural and educational exchange between France and the U.S. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a major in International Relations and French.

Bill Kiehl is founding President & CEO of PD Worldwide, consultants in international public affairs, higher education management, and cross-cultural communication.  He served as Executive Director of the Public Diplomacy Council from February 2004 through April 2007.  Dr. Kiehl has taught public diplomacy at the Foreign Service Institute and has lectured at a number of colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. He holds his Doctorate in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania. The title of his dissertation is "The Influence of Campus Internationalization on Local Communities."

  He served as diplomat in Residence at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership and was a Senior Fellow of the U.S. Army Peacekeeping Institute. During a 33 year career in the U.S. Foreign Service he also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Department of State, Acting Deputy Associate Director of USIA and Staff Director of the Interagency Working Group on U.S. Government-Sponsored International Exchanges and Training. Overseas, Mr. Kiehl was the Director of the U.S. Information Service in Bangkok and was Counselor for Public Affairs in London, Helsinki and Prague. His early postings included Belgrade, Zagreb and Colombo. He escorted the exhibition "Agriculture USA" throughout the former Soviet Union and served as Press Officer in Moscow. A decade later he was Public Affairs Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the CSCE Moscow Conference on the Human Dimension.

  In addition to his Ed.D. degree from Penn, Mr. Kiehl earned an honors degree from the University of Scranton and an M.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. He was Honorary Visiting Fellow at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. Recent publications include: "Unfinished Business: Foreign Affairs Consolidation was only the Beginning", National Security Studies Quarterly, "Peacekeeper or Occupier? U.S. Experience with Information Operations in the Balkans" International Peacekeeping; Information Operations: Time for a Redefinition? USAPKI; "Partnership: Information Operations and Civil-Military Cooperation in Peacekeeping", Cornwallis VIII, "Can Humpty Dumpty Be Saved?", American Diplomacy and reviews in "Parameters" and "The Foreign Service Journal." He is the editor of the 2006 PDC book "America’s Dialogue with the World" and is the author of chapters in two upcoming books "Affairs of State" (2007) and "The Public Diplomacy Handbook" (2008).

Eugene P. Kopp earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees at the University of Notre Dame and his J.D. at the College of Law, West Virginia University. He served as Deputy Director/Acting Director, U.S. Information Agency in the Nixon, Ford and George H. W. Bush Administrations, as a Consultant to the National Security Council in 1981, and on the National Security Council Transition Team, l980-1981. Subsequently he was Executive Director, MFJ Task Force and Vice President, Union Pacific Corporation.

Daniel Kuehl holds a doctorate in history from Duke University and is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. Since 1994 he has been a professor at the Information Resources Management College at the National Defense University, where he directs the Information Strategies Concentration Program. His teaching and research emphasis is on the use of the information component of power in national security strategy. He served for 22 years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force with a series of assignments involving nuclear plans and ICBM operations and airpower doctrine.

Steven Livingston is Associate Professor of Political Communication and International Affairs at The George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, D.C. From 1996 to 2002 he served as the director of Political Communication Program in the School of Media and Public Affairs. He is a cofounder of the Public Diplomacy Institute (PDI) at GWU and serves as chairman of the board of the PDI. Livingston's research and teaching focus on media/information technology and international affairs. He is especially interested in the role of advanced information technology and media in national security policymaking. Education: Ph.D., Political Science, University of Washington, 1990; M.A., Political Science, University of Washington, 1984; B.A., Political Science, University of S. Florida, 1981.

Kristin Lord is Associate Dean for Strategy, Research, and External Relations at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. In 2005-2006, she served as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and Special Adviser to the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs. In that capacity, she worked on a wide range of issues including international science and technology cooperation, international health, democracy and the rule of law, communications, and public diplomacy. She is currently Project Director of a Council on Foreign Relations study group entitled "Beyond Institutions: Building Cultural Support for the Rule of Law" and a nonresident Science Diplomacy Fellow at the University of Southern California's Center for Public Diplomacy.

A political scientist, Dr. Lord teaches courses on the causes of war, U.S. public diplomacy, and U.S. foreign policy. She is the author of Perils and Promise of Global Transparency: Why the Information Revolution May Not Lead to Security Democracy or Peace (SUNY Press, 2006), Power and Conflict in an Age of Transparency, edited with Bernard I. Finel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), and numerous book chapters and articles. Dr. Lord received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University and her B.A., magna cum laude, in international studies from American University.

Edward McBride is a retired Foreign Service officer whose thirty-five year career included assignments in eastern and western Europe as well as Africa. After leaving the Foreign Service, McBride served as deputy director of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, a position he held from 1998-2002. He currently works with a number of organizations involved in international relations and international education and cultural exchange.

Michael McCarry has been executive director of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange since 1994. Prior to joining the Alliance, he served as a USIA Foreign Service officer with assignments in China, Thailand, and Washington, and as a Congressional staffer and a journalist. He is a graduate of Notre Dame and the University of Texas at Austin, and also attended Melbourne University in Australia.

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell is the President of Marlboro College in Vermont. She is a past President of the Center for Arts and Culture and part time director of the Veterans History Project at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Previously she was Deputy Assistant to the President and Advisor to the First Lady on the White House Conference on Cultural Diplomacy. She served as Chief of Staff to Senator Patrick Leahy for ten years.

Mike McCurry is a communications and public affairs strategist in Washington, DC. He was Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1998 and Spokesman for the U.S. State Department 1993-94. Mike is a veteran of national Democratic campaigns, most recently serving as senior advisor to Senator John Kerry and having worked in presidential contests 1984-1996 for John Glenn, Bruce Babbitt, Lloyd Bentsen, Bob Kerrey, Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. He serves on numerous boards and councils, including the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at his alma mater, Princeton University, and the Board of the Center for International Private Enterprise.

Sherry L. Mueller joined the National Council for International Visitors staff as Executive Director in January 1996 and has served as President of NCIV since 2001. Before coming to NCIV, she worked eighteen years for the Institute of International Education, first as a Program Officer and then as Director of the Professional Exchange Programs staff. She has served as an Adjunct Professor at the School of International Service, American University, where she taught courses on U.S. Public Diplomacy. Prior to joining IIE, Sherry served as an Experiment Leader to the former Soviet Union, an English Language Officer for the U.S. Department of State, a Lecturer at the University of Rhode Island, and a consultant to a variety of organizations, including the U.S. Department of State, Tufts University and the National 4-H Foundation. She earned her Ph.D. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the evaluation of exchange programs. Sherry is an active volunteer and has served on the boards of various nonprofit organizations, including the International Student House in Washington, DC. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of World Learning (co-chair of the World Learning for International Development Committee), as Chair of the Coalition for American Leadership Abroad (COLEAD) Board, and as a member of the Board of the Public Diplomacy Council. In appreciation for her active role in alumni affairs at the American University, Sherry received the Alumni Recognition Award in 1990. In 1995, she received the Distinguished Alumna Award from the Lake Park High School Educational Foundation. In 1996 she was presented with USIA's Award for Outstanding Service. She is listed in Who's Who in America. Sherry has lived in Brazil, where she taught English, and traveled extensively throughout East and West Europe and Southeast Asia. Author of various articles and research reports, Sherry is often called upon to speak about the evaluation of international exchange programs, international careers, trends in international education and exchange, and building NGO leadership. In May 2001 she served as a speaker for the U.S. Department of State in Saudi Arabia giving lectures and conducting workshops on Leadership Development for Nonprofit Organizations. Dr. Mueller’s book, Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development was published by NAFSA in July 1998. Her articles include: "The International Thanksgiving Fellowship: A Case Study in Citizen Diplomacy," published in the summer 2004 issue of The Intercultural Management Quarterly; "Citizen Diplomats can Combat Terrorism One Handshake at a Time," published in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on September 14, 2003; and "The Power of Citizen Diplomacy" published in the March 2002 issue of the Foreign Service Journal. Sherry is a native of northern Illinois.