Staff

Dr. Gail Stevenson, Executive Director
gail@vermont.org

Gail served as the Director of International Programs at Champlain College. She is the former Director of the American Collegiate Consortium and a consultant to the Salzburg Seminar. Previously, she was a consultant with the World Bank, and has traveled extensively in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She was an AFS student in Norway and spent a year of college in Russia. She is fluent in both Norwegian and Russian. She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College, a cand. mag. from the University in Oslo and a Ph. D. in Economics from American University.

Eli Harrington, Director, International Visitor Leadership Program
eli@vermont.org

Eli is a native Vermonter from Winooski, whose multicultural character helped him learn from a young age to respect and appreciate his classmates from all over the world. He began to develop his international interests while in high school and traveled to France twice on exchange programs.

Eli attended Brandeis University where he majored in International and Global Studies-Communication and Media, with a minor in French and Francophone Studies and Journalism. His international interests led him to study three semesters of Mandarin before deciding to study abroad in Beijing in the summer of 2008. For ten weeks, Eli lived at the Beijing Language and Culture University, studying intensive Mandarin and experiencing local life and culture leading up to the 2008 Olympic Games. While in Beijing, Eli also worked as an intern at the Voice of America’s Beijing bureau. In his time there, he assisted in a variety of stories and themes from international wildlife trafficking to Olympics-related stories.

Interns:

Tori Carton is a senior at St. Lawrence University with combined majors in history and African studies with a minor in gender studies. Originally from Essex Junction, she recently returned from a five-month semester abroad in Kenya and Tanzania where she took classes through the University of Nairobi. She also worked for a month with a local NGO to promote gender awareness in the community and to dispel myths about Kenya’s new draft constitution. Tori has traveled to Belize and Guatemala and can speak French and Swahili, although she wouldn’t claim to be completely fluent in either. Tori hopes to work with an international NGO after graduation.

Max Krieg is a senior at the University of Vermont and will graduate in December of 2010 with a Bachelor’s in global studies and a minor in Spanish.  He grew up in Weston, Connecticut, and just spent a semester abroad in Seville, Spain, studying Spanish and international relations. After his time in Spain, Max spent three weeks backpacking throughout central and southern Europe and Morocco.  Previously, Max had traveled to Ecuador, Guatemala, Brazil and Chile for various service and recreational projects.

Joe Leidy will be a sophomore at Williams College and is considering Arabic studies, political science and history majors.  Originally from Burlington, he became interested in global affairs after trips to Spain, Peru and Brazil, where he studied Spanish.  He previously worked with local world music label, Cumbancha y Putumayo, where he honed his interests in world music. He intends to continue his study of Arabic in the fall and hopes to study and/or work abroad in the future.