Partner Director, Italy

Partner Director, USA

Partner Director, Egypt

Partner Director, Brazil

Partner Director, Norway

Partner Director, Dominican Republic

Melissa Liles (Chair), New York, USA Chief Education Officer, AFS Intercultural Programs

Milton J. Bennett, Ph.D. Oregon, USA and Milan, Italy Executive Director, The Intercultural Development Research Institute

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bolten, Jena, Germany Professor of Intercultural Business Communication, Universität Jena

Dr. Darla Deardorff, North Carolina, USA Executive Director Association of International Education Administrators and Research Scholar Program in Education, Duke University

Dr. Gunther Dietz, Veracruz, Mexico Secretary General, International Association for Intercultural Education (IAIE) and Director & Research Professor in Intercultural Education Universidad Veracruzana, Instituto de Investigaciones en Educación

Bruce La Brack, Ph.D., California, USA Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and International Studies, School of International Studies, University of the Pacific

Dr. Roberto Ruffino, Colle di val d’Elsa, Italy Secretary General, Fondazione Intercultura

Kumiko Torikai, Ph.D., Tokyo, Japan Professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Communication, Rikkyo University

Michael (Mick) Vande Berg, Ph.D., Maine, USA Principal, MVB Associates

Professor Nagesh Rao, Ahmedabad, India President & Director, MICA Institute of Strategic Marketing and Communication

Mitchell R. Hammer (Special Advisor), Ph.D. Maryland, USA President, IDI, LLC and Hammer Consulting, LLC

President and Chief Executive Officer

Vice President and Chief Operations and Financial Officer

General Counsel and Chief Risk Management Officer

Chief Education Officer

Chief Organization Development Officer

“My fellowship in the AFS Archives means being constantly in touch with the documents, artifacts, and photographs from the history of AFS, and especially with the great people that shaped this organization and made it grow. This is why I feel honored to focus on the processing and preservation of Arthur Howe Jr.’s collection during my fellowship. Art was a World War II volunteer, former president, and Life Trustee of AFS. In addition to that, working at AFS International gives me the opportunity to experience the contact with other cultures and languages, starting from the office! As a comparative literature graduate, I find it really inspiring.”

“I am currently interning in the AFS Archives in conjunction with the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation master’s program at New York University. I am surveying the sizable moving image collection (including film reels, audio cassettes, and VHS tapes, among other forms of media) dating back to World War I. In my short time here, I have been gaining insight and experience as to how to support a non-profit institution by helping to preserve its historic media holdings for posterity, as well as to the benefit of AFSers around the world.”

“I am about halfway through my internship at AFS Intercultural Programs. I am improving my technical skills and learning new things about programming while developing a new customer-facing website platform that helps connect members to an online archive of information. I’m also having unforgettable experiences, like our wonderful staff retreat. We spent a day together playing interesting team games like “Escape the Room.” We also made pizza. I never thought making pizza was such fun. At the end of the day we practiced Tai Chi. I have never done these kinds of activities before, and now they are  interests of mine. 

“I have been an intern on the Organization and Volunteer Development team for almost five months now, and I am amazed at how much I have grown in such little time! Working in OD at AFS is allowing me to develop a variety of skills including design thinking and customer journey design. Currently, my favorite project is the implementation of the Volunteer Survey & Evaluation, a global survey about the volunteer experience that combines different research methodologies and allows flexibility to suit different cultural needs. Most importantly, AFS is teaching me what it really means to work in a multicultural environment. To be able to exchange ideas with people from different countries and backgrounds on a daily basis is thrilling and mind-opening beyond words.”

“My internship in the AFS Archives is part of my Masters of Information and Library Science Degree and Advanced Certificate in Archives from the Pratt School of Information. I came to AFS this past January to help preserve important World War II files, and am now excited to work on a series of World War I diaries, which have been recently digitized. The centenary of World War I provides a great opportunity to put these artifacts online, making them accessible to people around the world. The unique insight the diaries give as to the personalities of the volunteers who served with AFS and the experiences they had during the war make them a valuable resource. Personally, it has given me a much greater understanding of the kind of people who volunteered to help others before our country entered the war, what the war was like for those who lived through it, and has inspired me to learn more about the history of a war that I previously didn’t know that much about.”