Ms. Leslie M. Schweitzer President and Chair
Leslie Schweitzer is the President and Chair or Friends of AUAF, and serves on the AUAF Board of Trustees. From 1999 to 2011, Schweitzer served as a consultant in the capacity of Senior Trade Advisor for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In 2013, Schweitzer received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from AUAF.
Mr. Kevin Haggerty Treasurer
Kevin Haggerty brings over 35 years of experience in financial oversight in the international development, computer software and consulting services industries. Currently, Haggerty is the CFO at ACDI/VOCA with prior experience at Institute of International Education (IIE), DAI and Ernst & Young.
Dr. Evan S. Dobelle Secretary
Evan Dobelle is the Managing Director of Countable, a high tech company with offices in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Dobelle is the former President of City College of San Francisco, University of Hawaii, and Trinity College (CT). Dobelle offers a bold vision for the value of education and the challenges of building a community in a fast changing world.
Ms. Kathleen Campbell
Kathleen Campbell is the former Senior Deputy Assistant to the Administrator in USAID’s Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs (OAPA). Ms. Campbell, a Harvard Law School graduate, has over two decades of international experience managing and coordinating development and humanitarian programs, research and policy for the United Nations, USAID, and international NGOs.
Mr. John Deupree
John Deupree has over thirty years of experience as a leader in transnational education with a particular emphasis on international student mobility and U. S. higher education policy, most recently as the founding Executive Director of the American International Recruitment Council. John played a key role in the creation of the original strategic plan which led to the development of AUAF. He is co-author of a book on quality standards for US overseas campuses entitled “Ambassadors of U.S. Higher Education-Quality Credit Bearing Programs Abroad” as well as numerous research publications on transnational education and student mobility issues.
Ms. Stephenie Foster
Stephenie Foster is a partner at Smash Strategies and for the last five years, she served at the U.S. Department of State, most recently as a Senior Advisor and Counselor to the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. Stephenie also served at the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, focusing on women and civil society, travelling extensively throughout the country to work with individuals and organizations advancing the role of women in Afghan society. She served as Chief of Staff to two United States Senators (Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Christopher Dodd (D-CT)) and was appointed by President Clinton as General Counsel of the U. S. General Services Administration.
Ms. Kate Friedrich
Kate Friedrich is VP of Global Government Affairs for Thomson Reuters. She is responsible for managing Thomson Reuters’ government affairs operation in Washington. From November 2003 to March 2010, Friedrich served as special advisor to the undersecretary for democracy and global affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Ms. Teri Galvez
Teri Galvez is President of Paradigm Event Management, a Marketing, Special Events, and Conference Planning Company which she launched in 1996. Among her clients are Fortune 500 Companies, Non-profits, and National Associations. Teri served for eight years on the Advisory Board of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and was on the Board of Trustees for Voices for Americas Children. She serves on the Board of Directors of Gala Theatre, Think Freely Latino, and the US Senate Task Force on Hispanic Affairs.
Ms. Ellen S. Hurwitz, Ph.D.
Ellen Hurwitz is the Senior Consultant at Steven’s Strategy, an award winning professor of history, author and past president of three institutions of higher learning: Albright College, New England College, and American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan where she is President Emerita and Executive Director of its Foundation.
Ms. Michelle Kosinski
Michelle Kosinski is CNN’s senior diplomatic correspondent responsible for covering the State Department. Previously, Kosinski served as the network’s White House correspondent during the Obama administration. She joined the network in 2014 and contributes to all CNN programs and platforms. Kosinski is based in the Washington, D.C. bureau. Previously, Kosinski served as NBC News foreign correspondent based in London, where she reported for “BC Nightly News with Brian Williams, The Today Show MSNBC and CNBC. Named to this position in 2005, Kosinski covered a wide range of domestic and international stories for the network, including the military handover in Afghanistan.
Mr. Thomas F. Mefford
Thomas “Woody” Mefford is the former Deputy Assistant Administrator at the USAID Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. Prior to that, he was Senior Advisor for the International Information Programs (IIP) Bureau at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC.
Ms. Angela O’Byrne
Angela is the President of Perez APC, a 75-year old international design-build development firm, headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her 30 years of experience in design and management of diverse project types includes multi-unit housing, hospitality, recreation, master planning, historic renovations, education, government buildings, LEED certified projects, military construction and more.
Mr. Brendan O’Donoghue
Brendan O’Donoghue is a Founding Partner of Park Advisors, LLC in Washington, DC which advises corporate and private equity clients on strategic global market expansion and investments in Africa and the Middle East.
Ms. Morgan Ortagus
Ortagus began her government service as a public affairs officer at USAID, where in 2007 she spent several months in Baghdad, Iraq. From 2008-2010, she was an intelligence analyst at the U.S. Treasury in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, primarily covering the Middle East and North Africa. Ortagus graduated from Johns Hopkins in May 2013 with a dual Masters of Business Administration/Masters of Arts in Government. In early 2016, she joined Ernst & Young as a Global Executive Director and is the Chief Operating Officer of the new EY-GE Digital Alliance.
Ambassador Robin L. Raphel
Robin Raphel worked for nearly 40 years in foreign affairs agencies, including the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, and U.S. Department of Defense. She has served as assistant secretary of state for South Asia, ambassador to Tunisia, vice president of the National Defense University, and deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. She managed the sharp increase of development assistance to Pakistan under the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and she deployed to Iraq with the first civilian contingent after the 2003 invasion to help restore the critical food ration system throughout the country.
Ms. Rebeka Spires
Rebeka Spires is the corporate compliance and ethics officer, providing support to Louis Berger’s U.S. operation. She participates in the development and implementation of compliance and ethics initiatives. She oversees the firm’s global Code of Business Conduct training and regularly conducts training on the Code, anti-corruption, due diligence and other compliance topic. Spires was responsible for establishing policies and procedures for LBG in their Afghanistan office.
Ambassador Steven E. Steiner
Steve Steiner is the gender advisor for the U.S. Institute of Peace. He previously served in the Department of State’s Office of Global Women’s Issues and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Steiner has served for over 36 years in the United States Foreign Service.
Mr. Matthew Trevithick
Matt Trevithick worked as the Director of Communications at the American University of Afghanistan from 2010 to 2014. Previously, he worked at the American University of Iraq. He is currently the co-founder and director of research at SREO Research in Turkey, which analyzes aid effectiveness for the United Nations, the World Food Programme, and more than a dozen NGOs involved in the regional refugee humanitarian response.
Ms. Sam Vinograd
Sam Vinograd works as a National Security Analyst for CNN. She began her career in Baghdad working for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and subsequently served on President Obama’s National Security Council as the Director for Iraq, Director for International Economics, and Senior Advisor to the National Security Advisor.