The dZi Foundation implements, supports, and funds projects to improve the basic quality of the lives of children, women, and men in mountain communities with a focus on education, health, culture, and welfare. Global LAB and The dZi Foundation collaborate on village-based community service programs in the Himalayas.

Global Diversity Foundation promotes cultural and biological diversity and conservation in communities around the world. Global LAB and Global Diversity Foundation collaborate in Morocco on community service projects focusing on indigenous Berber communities in the High Atlas Mountains.

The High Atlas Foundation establishes community-based projects in Morocco that local people design and manage, and that are in partnership with government and non-government agencies. HAF was created by Peace Corps Volunteers and staff who served in Morocco. Global LAB and The High Atlas Foundation collaborate on Berber village-based community service programs in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

The Rubin Museum of Art is New York's newest museum and the first museum in the Western World dedicated to the art of the Himalayas and surrounding regions. Global LAB and the Rubin Museum of Art collaborate on multiple education initiatives in the US and throughout the Himalaya.

Subul Assalam Centre for the Arabic Language (SACAL-Fez) is an Arabic language center located in the historic city of Fez, Morocco. In addition to offering instruction in the Moroccan Dialect and Modern Standard Arabic, SACAL-Fez provides cultural lectures, activities (e.g. calligraphy, henna, oud lessons), and home-stays in the inimitable Fez medina (old city). Global LAB and SACAL-Fez collaborate closely on all these experiences with the ultimate goal of delivering a better understanding of Islam and Moroccan culture.

The School for International Training prepares students to be interculturally effective leaders, professionals, and citizens. In so doing, SIT fosters a worldwide network of individuals and organizations committed to responsible global citizenship. Global LAB works closely with SIT professors and graduate students to assist with curricula development, risk management, diversity issues, and program design and delivery.

Hal Denton, serves as Global LAB's Outside General Counsel through his law firm, Denton Tavares Paes LLC. He provides a wide range of general legal and corporate advice with a particular focus on risk management and safety policies and protocols, corporate governance, and monitoring outside counsel. He served as General Counsel for AFS Intercultural Programs from 1989 until 2004. AFS is a large multi-national not-for-profit organization with approximately 11,000 study abroad students per year in 54 countries.

Paula Green, Ed.D., founded and directs the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and serves on the faculty of the School for International Training, where she developed SIT's programs in conflict transformation across cultures. She has extensive international experience in peacebuilding and has taught at several graduate schools, universities, and other educational centers worldwide. As a facilitator in interethnic dialogue and conflict transformation, Green has worked in Bosnia, Israel and Palestine, Rwanda and Eastern Africa, Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal, and many other regions. In addition to consulting and training, Green has been an active board member of several international peace organizations, including the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. The author of numerous internationally published articles and chapters, Green co-edited the textbook, Psychology and Social Responsibility: Facing Global Challenges.

Gary J. Martin, Ph.D. is the Director of The Global Diversity Foundation and is responsible for establishing long-term 'observatories' of cultural and natural diversity at selected field sites in Asia, Africa and Latin America.He has been involved in conservation and ethnobotanical work for over twenty-five years, starting with a gap year in 1980 in which he carried out fieldwork in Mexico. He holds a BS in botany from Michigan State University and a MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. Gary also serves as a Director of Diversity Excursions Ltd., a subsidiary of The Global Diversity Foundation, which is dedicated to providing ecologically appropriate and scientifically informative travel to southern Morocco.

Ann McCollum is a professional risk management consultant (Ann McCollum Consulting, LLC). Her practice focuses on identifying and mitigating potential safety risks for experiential, wilderness, and international travel for schools and youth development programs through risk management audits, program design and review, staff training, and appropriate documentation.

Craig Selzman, MD is Assistant Professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He has extensive international experience, including medical relief work in sub-saharan Africa and wilderness expeditions in South America. He is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School, an avid kayaker and mountain climber, and an expert in wilderness medicine. He received his BA from Amherst College and his MD from the Baylor School of Medicine.

C. David Thomas is the founding director of the Indochina Arts Partnership, a non-profit organization he launched in 1988 to foster cultural development and exchange. To date, the IAP has facilitated more than 50 residencies in the U.S. for visiting Vietnamese artists and writers. David first arrived in Vietnam in 1969 as a combat artist/soldier. Stationed in Pleiku with the 20th Engineer Battalion, David's jobs ranged from drafting blueprints, to driving a jeep, to sketching engineering projects. He first returned to Vietnam in 1987 with the U.S. Indochina Reconciliation Project; since then he has made dozens of trips coordinating cultural exchange programs between the US and Vietnam. David was awarded a 2002-03 Fullbright Scholar grant to live in Vietnam. His book, Ho Chi Minh: A Portrait was published in 2003.

Gray Tuttle is the Leila Hadley Luce Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in Inner Asian Studies at Harvard University in 2002. He studies the history of twentieth century Sino-Tibetan relations as well as Tibet's relations with the China-based Manchu Qing empire. The role of Tibetan Buddhism in these historical relations is central to all his research. His current research project focuses on the support that Tibetan Buddhist institutions have received from the governments of China from the 17th to 20th century and how this support, along with economic growth in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, has fueled expansion and renewal of these institutions into the contemporary period.

Kate Wang, MSc currently manages the Wildlife Conservation Society's Pacific Coast programs in the United States. Focal areas of her work include strategic partnership development, outreach, fundraising and the development of a capacity building and education project for Native American youth. Prior to joining WCS, Kate was the Outreach Program Director at the North American Association for Environmental Education. Kate has experience leading international and domestic wilderness trips and cultural study tours for youth and is passionate about leadership development, environmental sustainability and the value of cultural exchange both within the United States and abroad. Kate holds a B.A. in American Studies from Georgetown University and an M.S. in Environmental Education and Behavior, with a concentration on Ecotourism, from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Brad Choyt
Although he wanted to travel to India while a student at Phillips Exeter, Brad didn't have the chance to start exploring Asia until his junior year abroad from Brown University, when he first visited India and Nepal. Once he graduated with degrees in Studio Art, Religious Studies, and Art History, he returned to Kathmandu where he served as an apprentice to a master Tibetan thang-ka painter who is still, more than 20 years later, a close friend. After two years of trying to learn the intricacies of grinding stone pigments and using brushes made with single hairs, he returned to the United States ready for graduate school and the making of an entirely different kind of art. Over the next three years, he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on painting and sculpture. Knowing that he wanted to inspire young artists, he became a faculty member at Miss Porter's School in Farmington, CT, and served there for five years. During that time, he continued to create and exhibit his work, but he also expanded his sense of what was possible in a classroom and even what constituted the limits of a classroom. In 1995, he began taking students to Asia, primarily in the Indian and Nepali Himalaya, experiences that led him directly to the work he does today at Global Learning Across Borders. This work has brought him and what is now a wide range of collaborators and fellow educators back to the region dozens of times and given him deep experience in everything from the philosophy to the logistics of planning international curricula that emphasize profound personal transformation and safety. While designing these programs during the summer and the academic year, Brad served, from 2000 to 2005, as a faculty member and Chaplain of Eastern Religions at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH. From 2005-2007 he served as the first Director of Education at the Rubin Museum of Art, the country's only museum devoted exclusively to Himalayan art and culture. From 2007-2008, Brad served as the Founding Director of Green School in Bali, Indonesia. In 2009, he returned to New York as the Head of School at Blue School, a position he currently holds. Beginning in 2011, Brad and his wife, a writer, and their three young children will move to Yarmouth, Maine, where he will assume the position of Headmaster of North Yarmouth Academy.

Deborah Friedman
Deborah received her Master's degree in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management with a concentration in International Education from School for International Training (SIT). Her thesis, The American Gap Year, examined the Gap Year trend in America from college admissions advisors' perspectives and has presented her research at the Federation EIL Poland General Assembly and, as a guest lecturer, at SIT. Deborah managed UNICEF's P²D (personal x professional development) program, a non-traditional career development program for UNICEF staff members and their families. Prior to UNICEF, Deborah designed, developed, and lead intercultural programs, both domestically and abroad, with organizations such as The Experiment in International Living, Semester at Sea, and Kids Can Free the Children / Leaders Today, The Institute for Civic Leadership at the Dwight School, and CIEE. From 2004-2005, Deborah served on the Board of World Learning as a Student Trustee and is now a Leader of their New York Alumni Chapter. Deborah has her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Communication Arts with a minor in Business and attended Boston University's Study Abroad Internship Program in Sydney, Australia. She is currently Global LAB's Director of Asia Programs.

John Eastman, Ex Officio
John brings more than 20 years of non-profit experience to Global LAB, including extensive international experience, having spent five years in Asia working for NGO's before dedicating himself to non-profit global education initiatives based in the United States. His intercultural education background includes design and development of global studies and service programs in Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Morocco, and Vietnam; ESL instruction in Hanoi for the Vietnam-USA Friendship Society; and teaching at Houston's Taiwanese-American Community Association and Park Place School, serving Vietnamese and Mexican children of recent immigrants. In the early 1990's John was an editor at Oxford University Press in New York City and later helped design and manage PEN America Center's national literacy program for at-risk populations. He is a graduate of Amherst College.

Kathleen Frye
Kathleen has been making and teaching art for 25 years. For the last three years she has taught at The Dwight School in Manhattan, and was recently appointed head of the school-wide curriculum review committee. She will also direct the school's museum program, which integrates museum learning experiences with classroom curriculum. Kathleen's teaching practice focuses on the arts as a means of appreciating the rich diversity of both local and world communities. Before moving to the east coast in 1998, Kathleen lived in Colorado for eighteen years where she worked as a visiting artist in inner city schools, as adjunct faculty at the college level, and founded a successful after-school visual arts program for children. Kathleen spent a year in Brazil as an exchange student and returned later for extensive travel through South America. She is a graduate of the University of California with an MFA in Printmaking from Colorado State University and an MA in Art Education from City College of New York.

Scott Hoyt
Scott earned his MBA from New York University and has over twenty-five years experience in marketing and business development. While working over the years in sales, advertising, marketing, overseas new products, and business development (most notably in the areas of OTC family planning products and herbal remedies), he served as a member of the Board of Directors at Carter-Wallace Inc., a Fortune 500 healthcare products company. Scott has served on the board of the Lower East Side Service Center (L.E.S.C) in New York City and for nearly two decades, he has been a supporter of The Tibetan Classics Translators Guild, where he currently serves as President. In recent years, Scott established Hoyt Tea, a new venture in beverage tea, as well as Tea Dragon Films. In 2007 he directed and produced the feature length documentary film, The Meaning of Tea. Scott continues to travel widely, and maintains a keen interest in studying and photographing cultures and traditions around the world where tea is understood, and appreciated.

Lauren M. Maher
Lauren has over 12 years experience in international development project management with a primary focus on Africa and health. She currently serves as Program Officer for Northern California Grantmakers. Prior to joining NCG, she worked at the Rockefeller Foundation from 1998-2006, supporting grantees in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, coordinating The Philanthropy Workshop, and serving as a member of the Women and Development Strategic Working Group as well as the Foundation's corporate citizenship grantmaking committee. From 2003-2004, she was a Coro Leadership New York Fellow. Lauren is currently pursuing a Masters of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she is focusing on international health.

Periodically, Global LAB will feature alumni from prior programs whose cross-cultural experiences helped to shape their future paths, commitments, and interests. Check back for these personal insights, updates, and inspirational stories from these exceptional individuals. If you are a Global LAB alum and would like to share your story for a future spotlight, please answer the two questions below, submit a recent photo and email us at info@global-lab.org. Short videos/digital stories are welcome too!

Lara Glass, India Semester, 2008

Lara preparing a meal with friends at Grinnell College

When I decided as a sophomore in high school that I wanted to graduate a semester early and participate in some sort of gap semester study abroad program before heading off for college I expected to be stimulated by being in a new place, and I had hoped to connect to people in ways that I hadn't before. My semester in India with Global LAB far exceeded any expectations or hopes that I had, in these realms as well as in all others. The semester was hands-down the most challenging and rewarding experience I had ever had, and what I learned in that semester has aided me in countless experiences and relationships since.

The group-oriented nature of the program fostered communication and openness in ways that I had never experienced with my peers before. The leadership was outstanding, constantly reminding us to challenge assumptions we had about anything as well as encouraging us to delve deeply into day-to-day experiences to pull out both universal aspects of human experiences as well as particular cultural manifestations of these universals, learning to be both respectful and appreciative as well as intelligently critical of all human cultures, including our own. I am deeply thankful that the organization of the program was such that we were never allowed to act as though we were simply on vacation, we had our tourist times, but I am immeasurably glad that the program organization and leadership made each day a challenge, beyond simply the challenges of getting around in a foreign environment, but a challenge to what we thought we knew about the world, each other and ourselves.

Participating in a Global LAB semester before heading off to college provided me with a well of strength that I continue to pull from in my life in ways that still surprise me. It challenged me to break apart my pre-conceived notions of reality and shatter romanticisms I had about life in ways that, instead of being paralyzing or disillusioning, opened up new realms of possibility regarding my hope for human-kind and my place in the world.

I went to northern India with Global LAB in spring 2008 about to enter as a freshman at Grinnell College. As I now look with some trepidation and a lot of excitement upon entering my last year of college and the post-grad world, I remind myself of one of the greatest things I learned from my semester with Global LAB: To be confident in myself and my own abilities and cognizant of my reliance and interconnectedness with others, and to always seek and appreciate the beauty in true communication beyond all perceived or real differences and boundaries.

Gabriella Crimi, Morocco Semester, 2010

Gabriella (second from left) with fellow students Emanne and Kelsey,
and newlywed in-country coordinator, Fatima, on the Morocco fall '10 semester program

What was the most valuable thing you learned from living/traveling in Morocco?

After spending three months in Morocco, I knew how to successfully maneuver the medina's alleyways. I had already learned how to communicate in Darija, the Moroccan Arabic dialect, and my bargaining skills made my home-stay family proud. I had not merely experienced Moroccan culture, but embraced it. However, I learned my most valuable lessons during the time I spent with my Moroccan home-stay families. My six weeks living with my home-stay family in Fes, along with my week of living with families in the High Atlas Mountains, allowed me to directly experience Moroccan culture and, more importantly, gave me a deep and personal understanding of Islam--one of the best gifts I have brought back with me. I came to realize that no matter how many differences there seemed to be between me and another person, there was always something that could be found that would connect us.

In what, if any, ways is your international experience influencing what you are doing now?

My time in Morocco has influenced my life in many ways already, and I know that it will continue to do so throughout the rest of my life. I am continuing Arabic in college and hope to not just study abroad for a full year in the Middle East, but to work abroad in a Middle Eastern or North African country. I was introduced to a whole other culture that I fell strongly in love with.

However, my experience in Morocco has not only changed my future goals and living situations. It has also changed the very people I am friends with and my daily life! During the second part of my gap year I studied abroad in France. One day I overheard a worker at a fruit stand speaking Arabic to his friends. I joined the conversation and from that day forth I began working at the fruit stand because the owner and his wife, from Tunisia, were so delighted that I spoke some Arabic and was interested in their culture. I became very close with this family--even attending a sister's wedding--and their niece is coming to stay with me in just a few weeks. Not only did this relationship enrich my experience in France, but it also allowed me to continue speaking Arabic and learning about North African cultures. This experience would never have occurred if I had not spent time in Morocco. My time abroad gave me the confidence to go up to people and to start conversations. It ignited a curiosity deep within me to learn all I could about the language, history, people, and culture of not only Morocco, but any culture different from my own.

Read Gabriella's college essay on her Morocco experience here:

Gabriella's Application Essay.pdf

Sandy Wood, India Semester, 2008

What was the most valuable thing you learned from living/traveling in India?

At graduation, I heard a friend describing her motivation for taking a gap year: she wanted to experience the world before she could know what she wanted to bring to it.

I went to India with Global LAB knowing that I was interested in Community Service and eager to learn more about developing nations and communities and how to better help. I came home having completely redefined my conception of "service" and the unidirectional arrow that the term implies, and questioning assumptions about what "progress" looks like, realizing presuppositions I'd held about modern "development" as an innately positive cookie-cutter grail. India--and most significantly, exploring its manifold faces with my leaders and peers--helped me identify and uproot assumptions I hadn't even been aware of harboring and practice seeing the world around me with perpetually fresh eyes.

In what, if any, ways is your international experience influencing what you are doing now?

I'm lucky to have a connection with a remote school in the Himalayas of northeastern India, founded very recently by a man from the region. This link was part of my initial interest in traveling in India in particular. I went to visit the school a month before I embarked on my adventure with Global LAB. After that first visit, I knew it was an incredible project, with broad-reaching impacts both in the lives of the kids there and the communities from which they come. I fell in love with all the kids and the spirit of the community as a whole. I knew I wanted to do whatever I could for as long as I could to help it continue its work and grow sustainably and intelligently into its full potential.

In a most practical sense, Global LAB gave me skills I've needed for that: a basis in Hindi, a comfort getting around in India specifically and, in a more general sense, a confidence in my ability to navigate and integrate into a world with which I'm unfamiliar.

I have been back to visit Jhamtse Gatsal for the last two summers, and have been doing basically whatever I can from home in the time inbetween to help the community thrive: I've been working on extensive fundraising here at Vassar, and it's been a huge motivation for me to get as much as I can out of my studies. I know the things I'm learning will be useful in helping my friends at Jhamtse in their work for years to come, and the more I learn in this environment that I am so, so fortunate to be able to be in, the more I can share with those who don't have the same opportunities I do. My experience imbued me with the gift of greater awareness and critical thought, and has given me the chance to consider abstract concepts (like poverty, education, globalization, and cultural heritage) through faces, and stories, and people I know, rather than solely through generalizations read from a book.

Isabella Kulkarni, Morocco Semester, 2008

What was the most valuable thing you learned from living/traveling in Morocco?

The confidence to be able to navigate through an entirely unknown culture and forge lasting connections with individuals--from the shopkeepers in the medina to the peers in my program. I returned home feeling not only that the world was my oyster, but that I could go anywhere on a whim with my pack and my travel smarts.

In what, if any, ways is your international experience influencing what you are doing now?

Despite being constantly surrounded by people in Morocco, my experience was very introspective. I had the opportunity for the first time in my life to grow in whatever way I desired. Nothing was mapped out, nothing dictated aside from a highly flexible travel itinerary. I was able to investigate my individual wants, and needs in a table rasa setting.

I arrived at Macalester as a freshman with a wealth of experiences and a sense of groundedness amidst the host of opportunities which I am always forced to choose between. Morocco served as such a sensory overload that I felt very well equipped at managing my time.

Furthermore, my semester in Morocco was a time for me. I was able to realize what I need to do to make me happy--not just successful. A pause from academia helped me realize my priorities and satisfy my soul.

Andrew Weaver, India Semester, 2009

Andrew in a light-hearted semester moment in Jaipur, Rajasthan

Throughout my ninety-four days in India, I kept a daily journal of everything that happened to me. I didn't want to forget a single moment of my time there, and so ended up each evening writing down all that had occurred during the day, followed by my reflections and thoughts on the events, and finally some assorted worries and hopes. There are three sections in the journal, demarcated by elegant pairs of curly little lines, that I put down directly after uncovering each of the "big" lessons India decided to teach me. Tongue-ever-so-slightly-in-cheek (it must have been the lightness I felt at learning them), I decided to title each one a "Grand Realization of My Trip to India." Here they are, in their condensed versions:

1) There is no discrepancy between people--whether in language, religion, culture, class, economic standing, race, or nationality--strong enough to outweigh the one fundamental commonality that we all share, constantly and forever: we're all human beings. When I was able to remember this on my trip, connecting with others, even through the mud of Hindi Pocket Translation Guides and misunderstandings about feet, became the simplest task in the world.

2) That old phrase, "It's a small world," is complete crap. But so is its cousin, the one that goes, "It's a big world out there..." They're both wrong. The world is at once the biggest and smallest place imaginable. Figure that out.

3) There are no endings--to anything, really. Once something has begun, it has begun forever. A semester in India, for example: it might look like it ends at a certain point in time, sure, but in reality its effects survive forever, in those whose lives it touches and changes. It sets off a ripple of consequence and reward that can never be undone. It lives on.

Settling in to college, I'm convinced, was infinitely easier for having spent time in India. All the things I gained have been of benefit. A further reach of patience...intimate familiarity with the deeper parts of myself...even simply the knowledge that there's something OUT there beyond my insular little bubble of college life. I became very interested in Buddhist studies on my trip, and plan to pursue them further here at school. I'm establishing a Middlebury chapter of Students for a Free Tibet. More than anything, though, I'm counting the months until a return trip is possible.

Ella Mitchell, Morocco Semester, 2008

What was the most valuable thing you learned from living/traveling in Morocco?

There are too many things! Beside the feeling that I know Moroccan culture pretty much inside and out, I think the most valuable thing I learned was how to make the most of a trip and push my limits. I've traveled a good amount before, but this trip gave me the responsibility of engaging myself with our activities and the culture. There were definitely difficult parts, but I know now that I can not only survive, but also thrive, in a foreign environment.

In what, if any, ways is your international experience influencing what you are doing now?

I think the main way my trip is influencing me now is that it has helped me mature and adjust to college that much more quickly. My experiences in Morocco have made me more flexible and adaptable to my college environment, but I also have a more global perspective than before. Though it's still a year away, I am also strongly considering studying abroad in North Africa or the Middle East and will be starting Arabic classes this fall. I now recognize the value in immersing myself in different cultures, and I can't wait to do so again!

Katie Finnigan, India Semester, 2006

What was the most valuable thing you learned from living/traveling in India?

I learned that many things that I had thought were natural, innate traits were in fact cultural. For example, in the United States the idea of increasing efficiency is almost always good. Even in the non-profit world, organizations are always trying to streamline their processes and boost production. In India, many things are not efficient at all (try finding a working ATM or a train that's running on time). I found this to be among the most frustrating and most rewarding things about my trip. In India, it may have taken me 4 hours to mail a package, but while I was trying to get it done, chances are I'd have a crazy adventure or meet an extraordinary, interesting person who would invite me back to their house for tea. It is convenient to have things like shopping or shipping so streamlined in the United States, but I had no idea how much spontaneity and human connection we lose along the way until I went to India.

In what, if any, ways is your international experience influencing what you are doing now?

I had wanted to work in non-profits before I went to India, but my trip solidified that goal. When I came back, I started canvassing door-to-door for an environmental campaign and started a club on my college's campus to raise awareness about poverty in my college's town. Going to India also gave me a desire to work internationally. I've
graduated college now and I'm currently preparing to go back to grad school in global communication and development.

Janay is the newest addition to the Global LAB team, joining the organization as the Program Manager of the International Leadership Program (ILP). She is energized and excited to be working with the Global LAB team and ILP's New York City high school students. Janay brings non-profit experience working with young scholars from several previous organizations, including: the Noble Street Charter School in Chicago as a University of Chicago Public Interest Fellow, the Young Women's Leadership Network as a Program Management and Evaluation Intern, and with Peer Health Exchange as a Peer Health Educator. Janay earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Public Policy at the University of Chicago, where she also worked as a Marketing Coordinator and Peer Educator for the University's Resources for Sexual Violence Prevention organization.

Deborah Friedman, Director of Programs
Deborah received her Master's degree in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management with a concentration in International Education from School for International Training (SIT). Her thesis, The American Gap Year, examined the Gap Year trend in America from college admissions advisors' perspectives and has presented her research at the Federation EIL Poland General Assembly and, as a guest lecturer, at SIT. Deborah has designed, developed, and lead intercultural programs, both domestically and abroad, with organizations such as The Experiment in International Living, Semester at Sea, and Kids Can Free the Children / Leaders Today, The Institute for Civic Leadership at the Dwight School, and CIEE. From 2004-2005, Deborah served on the Board of World Learning as a Student Trustee and is now a Leader of their New York Alumni Chapter. Deborah has her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Communication Arts with a minor in Business and attended Boston University's Study Abroad Internship Program in Sydney, Australia.

John Eastman, Executive Director
John brings more than 20 years of non-profit experience to Global LAB, including extensive international experience, having spent five years in Asia working for NGO's before dedicating himself to non-profit global education initiatives based in the United States. His intercultural education background includes design and development of global studies and service programs in Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Morocco, and Vietnam; ESL instruction in Hanoi for the Vietnam-USA Friendship Society; and teaching at Houston's Taiwanese-American Community Association and Park Place School, serving Vietnamese and Mexican children of recent immigrants. In the early 1990's John was an editor at Oxford University Press in New York City and later helped design and manage PEN America Center's national literacy program for at-risk populations. He is a graduate of Amherst College.

Alex Safos, Director of Middle East and North Africa Programs
Alex brings to Global LAB 15 years of domestic and international experience as a management consultant with BearingPoint and Chemonics international. He has lived and worked in several overseas locales, including Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. Alex was a business development manager with Chemonics International, specializing in international development funded by USAID and The World Bank. In its Middle East and North Africa division, he managed major projects for sustainable tourism and cultural heritage preservation in Jordan, fisheries management in Oman, and civil society promotion in Egypt. He was also the US-based manager for Chemonics' offices in Cairo, Egypt and Palestine. Alex's seminal overseas experience occurred in Fes, Morocco where he lived for a year and taught beginning and advanced English classes at the American Language Center (ALC). In addition, he assisted with the roll-out of the Arabic Language Institute/Fes, now the leading Arabic instruction center in Morocco. Alex holds a M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies--where he achieved proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic--and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin's Plan II Liberal Arts Program.

International Staff

Kempie Blythe, Program Leader
Kempie leads Global LAB programs in Morocco and India. A native of Charlotte, NC, Kempie graduated from Colorado College where she majored in religion with a comparative concentration in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. In her high school years she began traveling in Asia, seeking perspectives drastically different from her own. Kempie's initial intrigue with traveling developed into a passion for global learning and experiential education. She has lived, studied, taught, and volunteered in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. One of her most memorable experiences was the semester she spent in Morocco with The School for International Training (SIT). There she pursued intensive Arabic study and conducted an independent project on Gnawa identity. While in Morocco, she fell in love with the unique play of cultures and influences. During college, she also studied abroad in India, New Zealand, and Mexico where she examined the struggles of several indigenous communities. This interest has sparked her current intrigue with indigenous desert cultures. Furthermore, Kempie has been involved in the field of education for the past five years. Most recently this passion led her to Indonesia where she completed a 10-month Fulbright Teaching Fellowship in East Java. She has also taught ESL in the States and served as a teacher's aide at an environmental education school in Colorado. Kempie currently resides in San Francisco, CA where she works at a nonprofit that places at-risk youth in employment in local arts organizations. She is also an active volunteer at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) where she aids newly arrived refugees in their resettlement. An avid photographer, yogi, jewelry-maker, and outdoorswoman, Kempie loves creative endeavors and the fresh air. When she has the time, she is likely to be found cooking harira, a delectable Moroccan soup, for her friends.

Jackie Dennis, Program Leader
As the Program Director for the India Semester, Jackie brings more than ten years of international travel experience to Global LAB. Jackie's incendiary preoccupation with Modern Tibetan Studies was fueled while a student on the University of Wisconsin College Year in Nepal Program '99-00. During this time, she traveled independently throughout India, Tibet and Thailand, acquiring a taste for adventure that has yet to be sated. She has since made seven extended return visits to this region, both as a graduate student and as three-time field instructor for study abroad organizations. As a field instructor, Jackie designed and taught several comprehensive Tibetan Studies curricula - focusing on Art History, Religion, Current Events and Political History. In 2007, Jackie received her MA from Naropa University in Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies. Trained as an oral and textual Tibetan-English interpreter, Jackie now teaches Tibetan language, culture and religion to her students on rooftops and mountaintops throughout the pan-Himalayan region. She has spent the better part of the last decade traveling, working and studying in South Asia, North Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South America. In her free time, Jackie studies Sanskrit and Hebrew; translates Tibetan poetry for publication; writes travel narratives; dreams of her next adventure and the mountain hermitages of Tibet. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Kai Johnson, Program Leader
Kai currently leads India semester programs for Global LAB. He holds a B.A. in Human Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has spent the last several years in transit from the US to South Asia and the Pacific for study, work, and travel. During his time at UW-Madison, Kai spent two semesters abroad--the first in Suva, Fiji, and the second in Hyderabad, India. While in Hyderabad Kai studied Hindi, Urdu and Nyaya and Vedanta Philosophy and afterwards spent three months in an internship with the Micro Insurance Academy in Delhi. These experiences imbued him with a passion for the challenges and rewards inherent in international and experiential education, as well as a love for the intensity and the diversity of life in India, which he hopes to communicate to students. In addition to leading with Global LAB, Kai has also criss-crossed the US as a leader with Trek America and was a founding member of an organization aimed at increasing the availability of literary resources in Fiji.

Tracy Joosten, Program Leader
Tracy leads India Semester Programs for Global LAB. She has recently completed her M.A. in Conflict Transformation from the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. Her thesis explores how public schools in the United States teach conflict mediation and social competency skills to their students. A program facilitator for SIT's Youth Programs, Tracy works with youth from Vermont, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and the United Kingdom teaching workshops on social networking, prison industrial complex, restorative justice, and nonviolent communication. She also facilitates dialogues on gender, social identity, and spirituality. Tracy lived in Ladakh in 2006 while teaching for the Vermont Intercultural Semester. She created and implemented courses in Ladakhi Language, cross-cultural communication, and co-wrote and taught curriculum for a high school honors level research methods course. Her passion for Himalayan cultures stems from her studies in Nepal with SIT's Culture and Development program in 2001. Resulting from her SIT education, Tracy's teaching style strives to meld independent study and academic inquiry with personal transformation. Fascinated with communication, Tracy enjoys focusing on language learning, ritual, and music as a means to create connection across cultural divides.

Galen Murton, Program Leader
Galen has designed and directed cross-cultural educational programs in South and Central Asia for Global LAB and other organizations since 2005. He first visited South Asia as a student on the University of Wisconsin-College Year in Nepal program in 1998-99, and following graduation from Middlebury College in 2000 (with a degree in comparative religion), spent five subsequent years trekking, studying, and working in remote areas of India, Nepal, Tibet, and Pakistan. His tireless enthusiasm for exploration, and genuine appreciation for peoples of all cultures and walks of life, has been a subtle invitation for many to put aside their reservations and concerns and to lead a similarly exhilarating nomadic lifestyle. To this end, since 2005 Galen has led numerous experiential education programs in the Himalayan regions of India and Tibet as well as instructed with the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School/Outward Bound USA on the Atlantic coast near his hometown of Portland, Maine. He has been trained as a certified Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician (WEMT), and in addition to working as an educator in South and Central Asia, Galen has worked for the UNHCR with Afghan refugees in Islamabad and aided research projects on the sacred geography of the Kathmandu Valley. Most recently, Galen completed his Master's Degree in International Relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, concentrating on Political Geography and Conflict Resolution and with a thesis on the development of transportation infrastructure across the Tibetan Plateau. A father, a student, and an observer of diverse religious traditions, Galen continues to visit South and Central Asia virtually every year and strives to inspire in others the deep sensitivity to cultural and religious nuance that is gained through responsible, immersive travel in both foreign and familiar lands.

Erin Popek, Program Leader
Erin is currently an MA candidate in International Education at the School for International Training. Her first visit to South Asia and the Himalaya began in the spring of 2000 through Gonzaga University, her undergraduate institution, where she focused on International Studies and Political Science. With P.I.E.R (Program for International Education and Relief), Erin spent the summer teaching--and being taught-in an orphanage in Delhi, afterwards gravitating toward the mountains. There, while continuing her own pilgrimage, she researched for her undergraduate thesis, The Future of Chinese Tibet, through the eyes of Tibetan refugees. While listening to HH the Dalai Lama speak during a Kalachakra Initiation ceremony on the Tibetan-Indian border, Erin encountered a group of US high school students and their leaders who were also fortunate enough to be present for this holy occasion. Fascinated with this form of education she determined to become involved. The past five years have been a winding path of leading experientially-based international education programs, exploring the world's mountainous and wild places, including her own backyard in Alaska, white-water river guiding, teaching Spanish and being a student herself. She is a NOLS Alaska Mountaineering graduate and recently finished a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician course in the White Mountains of New England. Erin's wanderlust spirit, nomadic life-style and true love for putting herself outside of her comfort-zone can be contagious.

Jonathan Zalman, Program Leader
Jonathan earned a B.S. in Communication and Rhetorical Studies from Syracuse University and will be attending New York University this Fall 2010 in the M.A. program in Media, Culture & Communication. He has been traveling extensively since the age of 17 and has been to nearly 20 countries. He continues to study foreign languages, especially Mandarin. He lived in China for a year teaching English, Business and Marketing in Fuzhou, Fujian. While there, he volunteered at an orphanage on a weekly basis, and personally fundraised enough money to support the surgeries necessary to mend the cleft palate of a beautiful baby girl--she has since been adopted by an American family. He also lived in the Philippines working on creative writing, which resulted in the creation of a socio-cultural study and documentary pitch. Jonathan currently works as a freelance English, Hebrew and Chess teacher, writer, editor and marketer in Chicago, IL. He graduated from the improvisation program at Second City-Chicago. He doesn't own a television, attempts crosswords daily, and loves Chinese tea, dark comedy, the internet, philosophy, candy and basketball.