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Management Team

Senior Staff

Dr. Dan E. Davidson

Dan E. Davidson is President and co-founder of American Councils for International Education and Professor of Russian and Second Language Acquisition at Bryn Mawr College, where he has held the rank of full professor (now part-time) since 1983. In its four decades, American Councils has developed into one of the premier American education and international training organizations, administering more than thirty major exchange, development, research and training programs, including U.S. government programs and non-U.S. national fellowship programs. Its association division, the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), is dedicated to strengthening the study and teaching of Russian language and literature throughout the United States.

Dr. Davidson received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University and has devoted the past thirty-five years to research, teaching, and the institutionalization of support for the fields of Russian and second language acquisition, international education, and post-Soviet educational reform. Dr. Davidson is the author or editor of forty-four books and more than 60 articles in the fields of Russian language, culture, and educational development, including a major twenty-year longitudinal, empirically-based study of adult second language acquisition during study abroad. Dr. Davidson’s latest study, “Study Abroad: When, How Long, and with What Results? New Data from the Russian Front,” appears in the Foreign Language Annals special edition on Study Abroad, Spring 2010. He has directed thirty Ph.D. dissertations and 35 M.A. theses in the field of Russian and second-language acquisition. From 1992–1995, Dr. Davidson also served as co-chairman of the Transformation of the Humanities and Social Sciences initiative sponsored by philanthropist George Soros. The program produced over four hundred experimental textbooks for schools and colleges in Eurasia.

Dr. Davidson also has overseen the creation and development of national testing/assessment projects/programs in the Republic of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S., with support from USAID, the World Bank and the five respective governments of those nations, as well as privately-funded programs supporting the development of international cooperation in the study and teaching of the humanities and social sciences.

Dan E. Davidson currently serves as elected president of the Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL), as vice-chair of the Board of Governors of the European Humanities University (Vilnius), and on the Board of Governors of the University of California Consortium for International Education, the Boards of the Coalition for Distinguished Language Centers (CDLC), the U. S. National Foreign Language Standards Collaborative, and the College Board World Languages Academic Advisory Committee. Dr. Davidson is the elected vice-president of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature and current board chair of the Center for Educational Testing, Assessment, and Methodology (Kyrgyzstan), the first independent educational testing center in Central Asia. Dr. Davidson is a past chair and current Executive Committee member of the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, and served previously on the board of trustees of NAFSA, NFLC, and World Education Services.

Dr. Davidson is an elected foreign member of the Russian Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (RAO) and the Ukrainian Academy of Education. He is recipient of an honorary professorship from Kyrgyz National University (Bishkek) and of honorary doctoral degrees from Almaty State University (Kazakhstan), the Russian Academy of Sciences (Division of Language and Literature), and the State University of World Languages (Uzbekistan). He has received awards for distinguished service to the profession from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) in 1995 and the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages of the Modern Language Association (ADFL/MLA) in 1997. In 2005 he received the Kyrgyz National Medal of Honor (“Dank”).

Steve Nolan

Steve Nolan directs and helps develop the organizations strategic marketing efforts around the world. He is charged with planning and executing the marketing and business development strategies as well as helping guide expansion and promotion of existing programs. Steve has held various senior marketing, sales and business development positions for over 15 years with major media and education companies including Turner Broadcasting Systems, Time Inc. and Hooked on Phonics. Steve graduated from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University with a BA in Economics.

Billy Brown

Billy Brown has primary responsibility for analysis, planning, and execution of the organization’s fund development efforts. At American Councils, he is charged with the development of the fundraising strategy that is capable of expanding existing private sector and foundation relationships and securing new individual, foundation and corporate donors worldwide.

Billy received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and his Master of Arts Degree in Philanthropy and Development from St. Marys University of Minnesota. Billy has been in professional fund development for over 24 years.

Lisa Choate

Lisa Choate oversees and directs the management teams at American Councils responsible for the entire range of secondary school programs, including the Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX), Youth Exchange and Study (YES) for Afghanistan, and ASMYLE, and educator programs, including Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP), Teachers of Critical Languages (TCLP), and Teachers to Teachers program. In addition, she provides management oversight for all outbound training and research programs for U.S. participants, including the Flagship programs, and, since the summer of 1999, she has served as the American Councils' senior management liaison to the Library of Congress in the organization and administration of the Open World Program, the largest annual citizen exchange initiative in the history of U.S-Russian relations.

Lisa serves as the principal contact in the Washington office for ETS and other U. S. academic testing administration in the Eurasia as well as for all State Department's J-Visa programs administered by American Councils.

Lisa holds a Master s Degree in Education and Second Language Acquisition from Boston University and an A.B. from Bryn Mawr College in Russian Language and Literature. Since 1982, she has studied at length and traveled frequently to Russia and Eurasia.

Lisa has played a key role over the past 20 years at American Councils in the planning, negotiation, and implementation of exchange programs as well as in their regular evaluation and improvement. She has devoted particular time as well to the implementation of staff training seminars, new program design, and management of alumni programming.

David Patton

David Patton assumed the position of Vice President for Field Operations in the summer of 2002, after serving eight years as the American Councils NIS Regional Director in Moscow. In both positions, David has primary responsibility for oversight and senior-level management of a network of field offices and centers that now number more than 50 in 15 countries in East Europe and Eurasia. His duties entail extensive travel throughout the regions of American Councils activity, where he has contributed in significant ways to program development and administration, staff development, improvement of information technologies, and the elaboration of sound and effective policies for American Councils with respect to local tax codes and regulations affecting the operations of American Councils-administered programming. In addition to providing oversight for field operations, David also oversees higher education programs and coordinates the American Councils’ development efforts.

Earlier in his career with American Councils David has also served as Deputy Director of the NIS Exchanges and Training Project, a major USAID funded program for short-term professional development for NIS citizens. Prior to assuming that fulltime position, David served as resident director on American Councils Summer academic exchange programs in Russia and Ukraine.

David also served as the Assistant Director of the Ohio State University Center for Slavic and East European Studies. In this capacity he coordinated the Center's activities, budget and proposal development and assisted in the administration of the Center's interdisciplinary Masters program.

David is the recipient of numerous research grants and has studied and worked in the NIS region and Central Europe since 1983. His Ph.D. is in Slavic linguistics and his primary area of research is East Slavic languages with a secondary focus on the South Slavic group. David's dissertation is on analytic development in the modern Russian language.

John Henderson

John Henderson has over twenty four years experience in both public and private accounting, with a strong background in taxation, budgets, financial controls, cash management, federal grants, purchasing, reporting, and administration. John Oversees and directs all the Financial and Accounting activities as well as reporting for Management, the Audit & Finance Committee and the Board of Trustees. Prior to joining American Councils for International Education in 2001, John served as the Director of Finance at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a $30M association in Alexandria, VA. John also held the post of Controller and then Vice President of Finance and Administration for the American Rehabilitation Association in Reston. He holds a B.S. degree in accounting and business from George Mason University and is a certified public accountant (CPA). John is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Kitt Poole

Kitt Poole has worked professionally in the Human Resources field for more than 15 years, with both for-profit and non-profit organizations. She holds an M.S. in Counseling from Radford University and has earned the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) professional designation.

As Director of Human Resources at American Councils, she manages all aspects of recruiting, compensation, benefits and employee relations.

Prior to joining American Councils in 2000, Kitt spent six years at World Wildlife Fund, where she developed the Human Resources intranet website, and standardized expatriate and host country national benefits. Prior to that, she managed human resources functions for a variety of organizations, including a software development company, a radio ratings service, a statewide bank, a large hospital and a school system. She specializes in applying computer-based technologies to human resource management, strategic planning, developing compensation and job evaluation plans, and creating benefits programs.

Program Management

Office of Secondary Schools and Professional Exchanges

Office of National Security Language Initiative for Youth

Office of Program Development

Office of the Junior Faculty Development Program

Office of Future Leaders Exchange Program

Office of Teacher Programs

Office of Outbound Programs

Office of Higher Education Programs

Office of Curriculum Development and Multimedia Programs

Field Operations and Programs

Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes Programs

Office of Flagship Programs

Office of Educational Research

Office of Open World

Field Staff

Afghanistan

Albania

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Belarus

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bulgaria

Egypt

Georgia

Kazakhstan

Kosovo

Kyrgyzstan

Macedonia

Moldova

Montenegro

Russia

Serbia

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Ukraine