2011 Conference Keynote Speakers

Click the links below to view bio and keynote descriptions

Opening Keynote Speaker | Dr. Anne Copeland
Closing Keynote Speaker | Joanne Grady Huskey

Opening Keynote Speaker

Dr. Anne Copeland

Anne P. Copeland, Ph.D., is the founder and Executive Director of The Interchange Institute, a non-profit organization focused on the understanding and support of people and organizations in intercultural transition.  She is a licensed psychologist and was Associate Professor of Psychology at Boston University for 19 years. She has written several books and over 90 research articles, chapters and professional presentations on families, US culture, and transition. She has directed numerous research projects including:

• At Home Abroad, on how homes influence a global assignment
• Voices from the Road and Voices from Home, on the family and personal side of international short-term assignments;
• Moving Matters, on settling-in practices;
• Many Expatriates, Many Voices (2004) and Many Women, Many Voices on accompanying spouses on international assignments.

She is editor of the Newcomer’s Almanac™, a newsletter for international newcomers to the United States. She developed and delivers the training of trainers course, Crossing Cultures with Competence, for experienced professionals wanting to add new ideas and materials into their cross-cultural training toolkits. She is Program Director for Families in Global Transition’s annual conference.

Ways of Knowing: From Control Groups to Support Groups

Travel with Anne Copeland as she reviews her journey from university professor and researcher to supporter of families in global transition. Along the way, she will point out the detours, attractions, and roadblocks she has encountered as she studies expatriate families, and will highlight some of her favorite research findings about what makes a difference to expatriate families’ global experience. Together with her, explore what draws you to this field, and what you want to learn from it.

Closing Keynote Speaker

Joanne Grady Huskey

Joanne Grady Huskey is a cross cultural trainer and international educator. She is the co-founder of Global Adjustments in India, a relocation company that specializes in promoting understanding between India and people of other nations.  She has worked with many international companies to assist their employees in transitioning to international living.  She is co-founder of the American International School of Chennai in India.  She was the International Director of VSA Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. For her work with disabled children in China, she was awarded the Secretary of State's Outstanding Volunteer Award for East Asia and the Pacific.  She is a member of a Foreign Service family and has been posted with her husband and two children to Beijing, Chennai, Nairobi, and Taiwan.  She has published articles in Newsweek, Washington Post, State Magazine, Foreign Service Journal, FLO Direct, United Airlines’ Hemisphere’s magazine and Centered on Taipei.  Her book, The Unofficial Diplomat, was published as part of the Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series of the Association of Diplomatic Studies and released by New Academia Press in 2010. She presently is a Program Officer at Meridian International Center, where she coordinates the International Visitors Leadership Program for the Department of State promoting citizen diplomacy and cultural understanding with people from nations throughout the world.  She and her husband and two children now reside in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Power of Soft Diplomacy

In her closing keynote address to the FIGT conference, Joanne Grady Huskey will dispel any thoughts you might have that living abroad is a "piece of cake."  She is an advocate of soft diplomacy and will tell you, as her book title espouses, that we are all “Unofficial Diplomats.”  Whether you know, or work with, people from other cultures, or live for years abroad, Joanne’s premise is that you have a role to play to promote international understanding -- a commodity we will not survive without in this world. Joanne tells of her work in China, India, Kenya and Taiwan and how it made as important an impact as that of her official diplomat spouse.