Dr. Michael Nugent is deputy director of the National Security Education Program (NSEP), and director of The Language Flagship. Before coming to NSEP, Dr. Nugent worked on a number of international grant programs at the U.S. Department of Education. These include developing and directing the U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia Program and the North America Mobility in Higher Education Program at the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). He also served as Chief of Section, overseeing the Title VI funding of National Resource Centers, Foreign Language and Areas Studies grants, and the Language Resource Centers.
Dr. Nugent has served in policy positions as Vice President for Administration and Research at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) in Washington DC, and Deputy to the Chancellor for Systems Relations for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. Author of The Transformation of the Student Career: University study in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands (Routledge, 2004), he remains active in the field of international higher education policy.
Dr. Nugent has a PhD in higher education from Pennsylvania State University and serves on the Alumni Board of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He has been both a student of language and literature at universities in Germany, France, and Spain.
Email: nugentm@ndu.edu
T: 703-696-1991
Dr. Robert Slater joined the National Security Education Program (NSEP) in 1992 and has served as its director since 1996. As director of NSEP he oversees the program’s aggressive efforts to expand opportunities for U.S. students to study in and about areas and languages of the world critical to national security. He is also the principal architect of The Language Flagship. Dr. Slater has also developed the concept for new federal National Language Service Corps designed to address needs for language expertise throughout the federal sector.
Prior to joining NSEP, Dr. Slater directed a series of programs for the federal government designed to improve relationships between the higher education and federal sectors on issues related to the Third World. Dr. Slater has served as Chair of the national security community’s Foreign Language Committee and represented the federal government on numerous panels and commissions to address foreign language education issues in the United States.
Dr. Slater earned a doctorate in international affairs from the School of International Service, The American University, in 1974 and a BA in English from St. Lawrence University. He has published numerous books and articles on international politics, specializing on issues related to globalization.
Email: slaterr@ndu.edu
T: 703-696-1991
Ms. Sharon Nishizaki is program director for The Language Flagship at the Institute of International Education (IIE), the administrative agent for The Language Flagship Fellowships and Grants, and has served in this role since 2006. Ms. Nishizaki began her affiliation with NSEP in 1997 when she joined the Academy for Educational Development (AED) to manage the David L. Boren Graduate Fellowships. Prior to this, she was employed for 10 years in the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Fellowships and Grants as a program specialist responsible for the Smithsonian Graduate, Predoctoral, and Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs. She has also worked as a program analyst for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean at the Inter-American Foundation, an independent agency of the United States government that provides grants to nongovernmental and community-based organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ms. Nishizaki received a BS in Spanish and French from Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. She has lived extensively in Latin America, having completed much of her primary and secondary education in Mexico and Argentina.
Email: snishizaki@iie.org
T: 202-326-7697
Dr. Susan Duggan has been the senior strategist for The Language Flagship since 2005. She has bridged educational, governmental and business sectors over the past 30 years as a researcher, program designer, and strategist.
From 1993 to 1998 Dr. Duggan served as the senior policy consultant to NSEP. Prior to that, she co-founded and managed an international education agency opening study abroad and teacher education programs throughout Eastern Europe and Latin America. Dr. Duggan served as Curriculum Director for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-cultural Education; and earlier shaped the “Bay Area and the World Project” for the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, a formative business-education-government project in 1982.
In 1996, Dr. Duggan co-founded the Silicon Valley World Internet Center, an internationally recognized think tank and showcase for the advancement of Internet-related products. During the past decade of work with this center she has designed a methodology for conducting effective “think tank sessions,” which she has deployed in nine countries.
Dr. Duggan has a PhD and master’s degree in education, and a BA in anthropology from Stanford University; and a master’s degree in political science from Université Laval. Conversant in several languages, she is professionally proficient in German.
Email: duggan@thelanguageflagship.org
T: 831-336-8186
Ms. Mital Shah joined The Language Flagship in 2008 as a research specialist conducting research and analysis on Flagship programs and policy.
Ms. Shah received her BA in world religions and minor in anthropology from Emory University in 2000. Since then she has worked as an educator with the National Park Service, the Tohono O'Odham Nation, and the U.S. Geological Survey. Ms. Shah has also served as coordinator of Puran News, a non-profit Indian women’s organization aimed to help Indian women share, learn, and support each other’s endeavors to continue the legacy and heritage of the Indian culture.
In 2006 Mital received her master’s degree in interdisciplinary ecology through the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Florida. Her research focused on human dimensions of agricultural environments with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She received the Boren Fellowship in 2006 to conduct research in India with Himalayan Indian farmers and to improve her Hindi skills. She later served as a research assistant and principal investigator at the University of Florida where she conducted a needs assessment of small scale Hispanic and Latino farmers and ranchers in the U.S. on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She also served as a program assistant for the Florida Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Program.
Email: Shahm@ndu.edu
T: 703-696-1991
Ed McDermott joined The Language Flagship in August 2008 as the Senior Program Manager. Before coming to NSEP, he was Senior Program Officer for several Title VI programs at the U.S. Department of Education. He managed and oversaw the International Research and Studies, the Language Resource Centers, as well as the National Resource Centers and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships grant programs. Mr. McDermott previously served as Senior Program Coordinator at the National Foreign Language Center overseeing federal grants. He has worked within or on behalf of the higher education community for fifteen years.
Mr. McDermott currently serves on the Inter-Agency Language Roundtable Steering Committee and as a Senior Advisory Board Member for the Office of Director of National Intelligence Centers for Academic Excellence program. He has served on the Center for Advanced Study of Language/University Affiliated Research Center Advisory Committee and its Less Commonly Taught Language, Second Language Acquisition, and National Language Conference Committee working groups. In the past, he contributed to the Defense Language Transformation Team Planning Committee, the Foreign Language Executive Committee, and the Partnership for Public Service.
Ed McDermott holds a BA in History from Frostburg State University and has completed graduate coursework at Frostburg State University and University of Virginia. His professional experience and interests are in federal foreign language support and foreign language instructional enhancement. His work has included research on foreign language programs and their impact. He is interested in bringing rigorous analysis to demonstrate the effectiveness of the federal foreign language investment.
Email: McDermottG@ndu.edu
T: 703-696-1991
Laura Porter joined the National Security Education Program (NSEP) in June 2008 and serves as the communications strategist. She manages the content and production of the Flagship newsletter, Discourse, as well as a number of other communications-related activities. Ms. Porter is also the media contact for NSEP.
Prior to joining NSEP, Ms. Porter spent nearly six years at Sprint Nextel on the corporate communications team. Ms. Porter most recently served as the company’s spokesperson in the Mid-Atlantic region educating the media on Sprint Nextel’s products and services. In her previous role with the company, Ms. Porter led Nextel’s community relations efforts including its charitable phone loan program and recycling initiative.
Before joining Nextel, Ms. Porter worked both as a broadcast production assistant in an advertising agency and as a pre-school teacher for several years in her home state of Connecticut and in the northern Virginia area.
Ms. Porter has a BA in Communications from the University of Delaware.
She currently resides in Arlington, VA with her husband, daughter, and dog.
Email: PorterL2@ndu.edu
T: 703-696-9598
Ms. Nina Palmer is a program officer for The Language Flagship at the Institute of International Education (IIE) where she works primarily on Flagship Fellowships. Prior to joining IIE in 2006, she worked at The Brookings Institution in the Foreign Policy Studies program and at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the Economic Policy department. Nina graduated in 2002 from the University of Michigan with a BA in economics and French. Currently, she is pursuing a law degree at the George Mason University School of Law.
Email: npalmer@iie.org
T: 202-326-7697
Ms. Emily Matts serves as the program manager on the administration of The Language Flagship Fellowships and Grants at the Institute of International Education (IIE). Ms. Matts acts as the first point of contact for Flagship Fellows and provides support in the administration of Flagship institutional grants. Before joining IIE in 2006, Emily worked on the administration of Boren Fellowships and Flagship Fellowships at the Academy for Educational Development.
Ms. Matts received her BA from Xavier University (OH) in political science and international affairs, with a concentration on the developing world. As an undergraduate, she studied French, literature, and the European Union in France. In addition, she participated in a service learning project in El Salvador. Ms. Matts is currently pursuing her Master’s of Arts in International Education at The George Washington University. Her research interests include internationalization of U.S. higher education and post-conflict education.
E: ematts@iie.org
T: 202-326-7697
Ms. Sarah Forman joined The Language Flagship at the Institute of International Education (IIE) in July 2008 as a program associate. Sarah serves as the first point of contact for Flagship Fellowship applicants.
Sarah earned a BA in foreign affairs and Russian area studies from The University of Virginia in 2007. As an undergraduate, she coordinated a volunteer program providing advising and linguistic services to the international graduate student community. After matriculation, Ms. Forman spent a year in Vladimir, Russia working as a teacher of English as a foreign language.
E: flagship@iie.org
T: 202-326-7697