Holly Hudson

Texas A&M University

 Holly Hudson is the Associate Vice President for Global Engagement and Senior International Officer at Texas A&M University. She advocates for reducing barriers and increasing access to high-impact global experiences. Hudson has held leadership positions and is a regular presenter at NAFSA and other professional organizations. She is the recipient of the 2024 NAFSA Education Abroad Leadership Award. Hudson holds an M.S. from the University of Southern Mississippi and a doctorate from the University of Alabama.

Kristin Johnson

University of Rhode Island

Kristin Johnson is Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Rhode Island.  At URI she has served as the Director of the International Studies and Diplomacy Program, Director of the Graduate studies in International Relations, and as a professor of Political Science, teaching international relations and comparative politics. Johnson holds an M.A. in International Studies and Ph. D in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University. She attended the AIEA Leadership Academy in 2023.

Cindy Schaarschmidt

Pierce College

​Cindy Schaarschmidt has been working in international education for over 15 years and currently serves as the Executive Director of International Education at Pierce College District in WA State. A native German, she first came to the U.S. as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant. Schaarschmidt has also studied and worked abroad in Guatemala, the U.K., Russia, and Spain. ​Schaarschmidt holds an M.A. in Media Communications and American Studies from the University of Leipzig, Germany.

Marta Wayne

University of Florida

Marta Wayne is the Dean and Associate Provost of the University of Florida International Center. She is active in AIEA, and is passionate about international education, particularly student mobility and science diplomacy. Wayne is also a AAAS lifetime fellow. She is the past chair of the UF Department of Biology (2014-2021), and holds affiliate faculty status in both the UF Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies and the UF Center for Latin American Studies.

Jamie Weaver

Juaniata College

Jamie Weaver is the Dean of International Education at Juniata College. In this position she leads the internationalization efforts at the College with a team of staff members. She previously held the position of Director of Study Abroad at Juniata College and served as an Education Abroad Adviser at Penn State University. Weaver earned her Ph.D. from Penn State University in 2020 with research focused on the employability of undergraduate study abroad students.

2024-25 PRESIDENTIAL mENTORS 

​Jill Blondin, Associate Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at Virginia Commonwealth University, received her B.A. from Indiana University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Blondin served as a Fulbright Specialist to Brazil, as an Expert Speaker with the U.S. Department of State and Fulbright Portugal, and with the U.S. Embassy Guyana. In 2023, Blondin was named one of the PIE 50 Top Voices in North America, and IIE honored her as the Senior International Officer of the Year. She serves as Chair of the AIEA Member Outreach and Awards Committee.

Harvey Charles is Vice Provost for International Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He has served as Senior International Officer and Professor at multiple institutions around the US and is a past President of the Association of International Education Administrators. Charles' additional contributions to the field involve teaching, publishing, speaking engagements, consulting and mentoring. Charles earned his doctorate in higher education administration from The Ohio State University in 1991.

Reitumetse Obakeng Mabokela is the Associate Chancellor and Vice-Provost for International Affairs & Global Strategy and Professor of Higher Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a former Fulbright New Century Scholar and Fulbright International Education Administrators program participant in France. Her research examines experiences of marginalized populations and aims to inform policies that affect these groups within institutions of higher education. She received her BA in Economics from Ohio Wesleyan University and graduated with a Master’s in Labor & Industrial Relations and a Ph.D in Educational Policy Studies, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Anthony L. Pinder serves as the Vice Provost for Internationalization & Equity at Emerson College in Boston, MA. In this role he is responsible for managing and building on all of the College’s global operations. Pinder’s commitment to equity, access, and social justice (EASJ) is the result of a three-decade career devoted to efforts in this area. Under his leadership, Emerson won the prestigious 2020 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization, awarded by NAFSA. A graduate of the Institutes for Higher Education at Harvard University, he holds the doctorate in educational leadership and higher education administration from Clark Atlanta University; MA in international economics and Latin American studies from The Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); and a BA in finance from Morehouse College.
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Robert Summers is the Vice Provost for International Affairs at Middle Tennessee State University where he oversees the entire international enterprise of the university. This includes Education Abroad, International Enrollment Management, International Student Support Services, the Intensive English Program, the Center for Asian Studies and the Center for Chinese Music and Culture. He is currently the President elect of AIRC: The Association of International Enrollment Management and is an active member in AIEA, NAFSA, and Study Tennessee. Summers is a trained linguist and holds a PhD from the University of South Florida. He has a special interest Clinical Language Assessment; Comprehensive Internationalization in the academy; and International Enrollment Management. 

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