2021 Annual Meeting

During this challenging year, the Council has pivoted to virtual learning opportunities for students and teachers; innovated with virtual exchanges; and moved quickly to continue to have monthly webinars with foreign affairs speakers. Despite the uncertainty, we remain committed to serving our community and helping to diminish boundaries.

We look forward to reflecting on the 2020 community impact and we could not have done it without your support this year.

In 2021, we need YOU more than ever! In whatever way we can safely accomplish it, the Council is going to continue creating international connections, raising awareness on imperative global topics, and developing empathy within students.

We hope you'll join us to discover how you can support this important global but local work.

Katherine Brown, President & CEO of Global Ties U.S. speaks at the annual meeting!

Katherine will discuss the new trends in international exchanges emerging, their impact, and why building trust through public diplomacy is so essential to meet shared, transnational challenges. She’ll speak about this via her role as President and CEO of Global Ties U.S., and also through her field experience working on public diplomacy issues in Afghanistan, which is also explored in her book, Your Country, Our War: The Press and Diplomacy in Afghanistan.

Katherine Brown BIO: Katherine Brown, Ph.D. is the President & CEO of Global Ties U.S., the largest and oldest citizen diplomacy network in the United States. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies.

Before joining Global Ties U.S. in 2018, Katherine was a Public Policy Manager at Facebook, Inc., where she was also in residence as a Council on Foreign Relations' (CFR) International Affairs Fellow. From 2013-2016, she served as the Executive Director of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State, an office authorized by Congress to appraise and strengthen U.S. engagement activities with foreign citizens.

Katherine previously served in the U.S. government as an assistant to the National Security Advisor at the White House; as a communications advisor at the American Embassy in Kabul; and as a Professional Staff Member at the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the U.S. House of Representatives.

Katherine received her Ph.D. in Communications from Columbia University in 2013 and completed her doctoral fieldwork in Afghanistan and Pakistan where she examined their news media's effects on governance, civil society and foreign policy. Her book, "Your Country, Our War: The Press and Diplomacy in Afghanistan," was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.

She is a 2018-19 French American Foundation Young Leader; a member of the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy Advisory Board and the Alliance for International Exchange Board; and a former Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations.