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The Fulbright Association is proud to feature the following speakers for session presentations at its 2019 annual conference, “Connecting Minds and Hearts for Global Change”, taking place in Washington, DC. Please note that this list is subject to change.
Liz Rebecca Alarcón is a communicator and social entrepreneur. She leads Pulso, a digital organizing platform increasing the political power for Latinxs across the U.S. Liz comments and writes on Latin America, Latino issues and current events. She has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, Time, CGTN América, Financiero Bloomberg, The Miami Herald, and the World Economic Forum blog, among others. Liz is a former Fulbright Scholar and holds a B.A. in International Studies & Sociology from the University of Miami and a Master’s in Latin American Studies from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Román Baca, a New Mexico native, is a classically trained ballet dancer and choreographer. In 2001, recognizing his desire to defend the defenseless, he took a hiatus from dance and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, serving as a machine-gunner and fire-team leader in Fallujah, Iraq during the Iraq War. After the war, Mr. Baca returned to dance and co-founded Exit12 Dance Company, which tells veterans’ stories choreographically, to increase cross-cultural understanding and heal divisions. He has choreographed and championed dance works that explore the military veteran experience and the impact of war on civilians and families. Mr. Baca has presented his work at the 1st and 4th National Summits for the National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military, King’s College London, the Mayo Clinic’s Humanities in Healthcare Symposium, TEDXTUBerlin, TEDX San Antonio, TED@NYC, and is the choreographer and subject of the award-winning short documentary Exit 12: Moved by War produced by Square Inc. Read More.
Katherine Brown was named the President and CEO of Global Ties U.S. in 2018. From 2013-2016, Katherine served as Executive Director of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, a body authorized by Congress to oversee and promote U.S. government activities that intend to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics. Most recently, she was a Public Policy Manager at Facebook, Inc. where she was also in residence as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. Previously, she held numerous roles in government, including assistant to the White House national security adviser; communications adviser for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul; and professional staff member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the U.S. House of Representatives. She is a non-resident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University. She received her Ph.D. in communications from Columbia University.
Hans Cabra is a Fulbright Scholar from Bogota, Colombia. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Vermont. He is passionate about education and motivating children and youth to be curious. Hans believes that after school programs can close the opportunity and learning gap among children and youth from disadvantaged backgrounds by cultivating social and emotional skills. Education, Hans says, gave him an opportunity to escape poverty and ignited a passion for helping young people “pursue their dreams”.
Kathy R. Fitzpatrick is professor and former senior associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Communication. Prior to coming to American University, Fitzpatrick was professor and associate dean for graduate programs and research in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Florida International University. She also served on the faculties and directed graduate and undergraduate programs in public relations at Southern Methodist University, the University of Florida, DePaul University and Quinnipiac University. Her books and monographs include U.S. Public Diplomacy in a Post-9/11 World: From Messaging to Mutuality, The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy: An Uncertain Fate, U.S. Public Diplomacy’s Neglected Domestic Mandate, Ethics in Public Relations: Responsible Advocacy and Public Relations Ethics. Her research has been published in The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, the International Journal of Strategic Communications, the Journal of Public Relations Research, among others. Fitzpatrick serves as co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Book Series on Global Public Diplomacy and serves on the international advisory board of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.
Shontavia Johnson serves as a highly acclaimed writer, speaker and attorney thriving at the intersection of law, entrepreneurship, and culture. Shontavia serves as Associate Vice President for Academic Partnerships and Innovation at Clemson University. She has also founded LVRG, a company that helps women use their experience and expertise to build brands and businesses. Shontavia’s passions and expertise revolve around facilitating culturally competent innovation and encouraging women to pursue entrepreneurship.
Alexa Alice Joubin teaches in the English Department at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she co-founded the Digital Humanities Institute. She held a Fulbright at the University of Warwick and Queen Mary, University of London from 2014-2015. Her most recent book is Race in Routledge’s New Critical Idiom series (2019). Her teaching and research focus on globalization and Shakespeare.
Dr. Grace Mukupa holds a PhD in International Development from State University of New York at Buffalo. She is a Fulbright fellow and former Peace Corps Volunteer. Born in Zambia, grow up in Japan; lived in Belgium, Macedonia, Tajikistan and United States. She is the CEO and founder of GroundUp Rural development, an NGO that supports education, farming, Health, and gender empowerment in Zambia.
Erik C. Nisbet is co-director of the Eurasian Security and Governance Program at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and co-principal investigator on its Comparative National Elections Project. He is an associate professor in the Ohio State School of Communication with courtesy appointments in the Department of Political Science and School of Environment and Natural Resources. Erik is on the editorial boards of the academic journals International Journal of Public Opinion Research and Environmental Communication. Nisbet’s research centers on the role of media and digital communication in non-democratic contexts, public diplomacy, foreign policy, public opinion, and global problems such as climate change. He has published book chapters and articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Political Communication, Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, Hague Journal of Diplomacy, etc. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Dr. Noor Sabah Rakhshani received her Fulbright Scholarship (2007-13) to pursue a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) and a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) from Johns Hopkins University, USA. She also holds a MBBS degree from Balochistan University, Pakistan. Dr. Noor Sabah is a global public health practitioner and her research focus is to develop innovations to facilitate uptake of preventive health services. Since 2012 Dr. Noor Sabah has received several innovation grants from Gates Foundation, 3ie/Gavi and RAF Pakistan. She has conducted research and implemented interventions in Pakistan, Nigeria and North Korea. Dr. Noor Sabah currently is working as Director, Precision Health Consultants (PHC) Global, a program and policy research organization generating evidence for pioneering health technologies.
Max Versace is the Co-Founder and CEO of Neurala. He continues to lead the world of intelligent devices after his pioneering breakthroughs in brain-inspired computing. Max has spoken at numerous events including a keynote at Mobile World Congress Drone Summit, TedX, NASA, the Pentagon, GTC, InterDrone, GE, Air Force Research Labs, HP, iRobot, Samsung, LG, Qualcomm, Ericsson, BAE Systems, AI World, ABB and Accenture among many others. His work has been featured in TIME, IEEE Spectrum, CNN, MSNBC, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, Fortune, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Nasdaq, Associated Press and hundreds more. He holds several patents and two PhDs: Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University; Experimental Psychology, University of Trieste, Italy.
Jay (Jian) Wang is director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD) and an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He previously worked for the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he advised clients on matters of communication strategy and implementation across a variety of industries and sectors. Dr. Wang has written widely on the role of communication in the contemporary process of globalization. He has published four books and three dozen research articles in academic and professional journals. His most recent book is Shaping China’s Global Imagination: Nation Branding at the World Expo. He is co-editor of the special issue of the Hague Journal of Diplomacy, “Public Diplomacy: Now and Next.” He serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Communication. At CPD, he has led successful partnerships on research and programming with a wide range of organizations on topics, including soft power in global affairs, U.S. public diplomacy and national security, digital advocacy, and public diplomacy performance and evaluation. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.
Ms. Elisa Ahern, From Fulbright to Tech: Leveraging Industry Experience and Technology to Drive Chapter Development
After completing her BA in Physics from Willamette University, Elisa was an English teaching assistant in Germany for the 2015-16 school year. She worked in a low income school, and helped plan science lessons and interactive labs for 5th graders as well as helped to teach English lessons for 5th-10th graders. After Fulbright she switched tracks and completed her MS in bioinformatics from the University of Oregon. Just to keep things exciting, she changed career trajectories and now works in revenue data science at Seabourn Cruise Line, a great opportunity to continue promoting cultural exchange. Elisa currently serves as the Vice President of the board for the Western Washington chapter of the Fulbright Association.
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