Board of Directors
Skyler J. Arndt‐Briggs
Chair, Treasurer
Board Member since 1994
Skyler J. Arndt‐Briggs majored in French literature with concentrations in dance and women’s studies at Princeton University, before earning her PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her dissertation on The Social Practice of Place in Weimar Republic Berlin was based on over 65 extensive life histories (gathered 1988-91) of Berlin residents born between 1895 and 1925; the research was supported by a Fulbright‐Hayes Award and a grant from The Wenner‐Gren Foundation.
Until her retirement in 2022, Sky taught in UMass Amherst’s German and Scandinavian Studies program and was the Executive Director of the DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst—a unique archival, research and production center focusing on East German cinema. In this capacity, she raised funds, including from the NEH, and organized a wide range of projects: hosting visiting researchers and filmmakers; organizing conference panels, screenings, publications and biennial research institutes; subtitling and producing German films for English-speaking audiences; and creating film series that screened at prestigious national venues—including the Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago) and Toronto Film Festival—as well as internationally, for example in Chile, Japan and Israel.
Sky has written and edited publications on East German cinema during the global Cold War, as well as its Anglo‐American reception since the fall of the Wall. She also launched and continues to co-edit a book series on Visual and Media Cultures of the Cold War and Beyond for Berghahn Books (NYC/Oxford).
The daughter of Richard T. Arndt—founding Chair of the Lois Roth Foundation in 1987—Sky was very close to her stepmother, Lois Roth. She has been actively involved in a wide range of Foundation activities since the mid-1990s and became Chair of the Foundation’s Board of Directors in June 2014. Currently based in Baltimore, she and her husband, Greg Briggs, enjoy the company of their two adult daughters, Rosalie Arndt and Thea Briggs, as well as of their grandson, Reza Aix Salvador.
Anne V. Barbaro
Vice Chair, Secretary
Board Member since 2012
Anne V. Barbaro (nee Stenzel) graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1980, with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Science and Anthropology, with concentrations in American Government and African Pre‐history, respectively. After spending three years in Mexico as a photographer and English teacher, Anne joined the U.S. Information Agency in 1983, where Lois Roth and Dick Arndt were widely known and admired officers.
As a Foreign Service Officer, Anne served in Kuala Lumpur, Montevideo, Washington DC, Paris, Colombo, Madrid, Brussels, and again in Washington DC. In every post she had the pleasure of working on cultural diplomacy programs. In Montevideo, Anne was the Executive Director of the Alianza Cultural Uruguay‐Estados Unidos, a bi‐national center with 5,000 students of English, a United States Information Service library, two theaters, and an art gallery that thrive to this day. In Paris, Colombo, Madrid and Brussels she served on the Fulbright Commission boards, often as Treasurer, and always on the selection committees.
Anne retired from the State Department in 2007, from her position as Office Director for European Press and Public Diplomacy, with the rank of Counselor in the Senior Foreign Service. From 2010‐2012 Anne worked for XL Associates on a contract with the Bureau of International Information Programs, creating a new organizational structure for 800+ public engagement spaces (libraries, cultural centers, bi‐ national centers, American Corners) and securing an annual budget of $15 million to upgrade and expand this network.
Anne also volunteers on the board of the Public Diplomacy Council of America and as a transcript editor for the Academy of Diplomatic Studies and Training.
She currently resides in Reston, VA with her husband Anthony. Anne and Tony have two wonderful grown-up offspring and the family volunteers with Reston Cornerstones.
Read Anne’s article on joining the Roth Foundation Board!
Rosalie Ardnt
Board Member since 2025
Rosalie Arndt is the IRC’s Switchboard’s Senior Program Officer for Instructional Design. She is an educator with 15+ years of experience working with immigrants and multilingual learners. Before joining Switchboard, she served for five years as the IRC Resettlement, Asylum, and Integration (RAI) Youth Education Coordinator in New York City. Rosalie is a certified instructional designer, a certified English language acquisition instructor, and holds a BA in Sociology from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Deborah Cohn
Board Lead for the Dick T. Arndt Prize for an Outstanding Work on Cultural Diplomacy
Board Member since 2024
Deborah Cohn is Provost Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of The Latin American Literary Boom and U.S. Nationalism during the Cold War (Vanderbilt UP) and History and Memory in the Two Souths: Recent Southern and Spanish American Fiction (Vanderbilt UP), as well as coeditor, with Hilary Kahn, of International Education at the Crossroads (Indiana UP), and, with Jon Smith, of Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies (Duke UP). She has also published in the ADFL Bulletin (forthcoming), The Conversation, Diplomatic History, Diplomatica, and more.
She has received fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the Harry Ransom Center, among other sources. Her current research project is “Cold War Humanities: American Studies, Foreign Language Study, and the U.S. National Interest.
Debbie’s father entered USAID when she was a teenager and her mother later went into the State Department. Debbie spent her high school years in Central America and later visited her parents in Spanish America and Africa, as well as traveling extensively since then. She and her husband live in Bloomington, Indiana, and have three sons who share their parents’ wanderlust (and a dog who hates to see suitcases being packed).
Marti Estell
Board Lead for Project Support Programs Board Member since 2019
Marti Estell completed twenty-nine years as a career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State, rising to the ranks of the Senior Foreign Service. While overseas, she served as the Public Affairs Officer in San Salvador and Quito; Cultural Affairs Officer in Madrid and the Embassy Spokesperson in Tegucigalpa. She began her career in public diplomacy positions in Malaysia and Indonesia. Throughout her career, Marti led teams responsible for creating and carrying out public diplomacy programs and student exchanges, where she developed institutional relationships with universities and other academic partners, including binational Fulbright Commissions.
Marti’s domestic assignments included as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Diplomacy Center and the Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources in the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. She also served as the Division Chief for Recruitment in the Bureau of Human Resources and the Director of the Office of English Language Programs in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Marti earned a BA in Political Science and French from Stephens College in Columbia, MO and a MA in Western European Politics from the University of Essex (UK).
Amy Forest
Board Member since 2025
Amy Forest recently retired from her federal career at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), U.S. Department of State. She entered government service as a Presidential Management Intern (now Fellow) at the U.S. Information Agency. Over her 32-year career, she created programs for distinguished foreign guests through the Office of International Visitors, promoted the United States as a higher education destination for prospective international students through EducationUSA, and most recently, as Branch Chief in the Office of Citizen Exchanges, directed the administration of two of ECA’s flagship high school exchanges – the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) and the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX), in which some 1700 U.S. and foreign youth participated annually.
Amy earned a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and an MPIA from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
Stephanie Hallock
Board Member since 2024
Stephanie Hallock is a Professor of Political Science at Harford Community College in Bel Air, MD. She earned her Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Miami, FL and her MA in Political Science from Virginia Tech. In 25 years of higher education, Stephanie has served in a variety of faculty and administrative capacities, on numerous community engagement projects and on awards selection boards for the American Political Science Association. She was on the leadership team of the League of Women Voters – Harford County MD chapter for many years, and is proud to serve as a Higher Education Ambassador for the Council on Foreign Relations. Her most current projects include serving as a Fulbright Specialist and as a founding member of the newly created Fulbright Association Community College Chapter.
Lisa L. Helling
Board Member since 2022
During nearly 30 years in the diplomatic service, Lisa Helling’s assignments in Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Afghanistan, and supporting U.S. embassies in Central Asia and the Caucasus permitted her to advance U.S. policy goals in countries in transition. She led teams that initiated and managed programs advancing policy priorities in areas including democracy development, advancing women’s equality and leadership, building civil society and protecting cultural heritage, principally through public diplomacy, educational and cultural programs.
As Executive Director of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board Ms. Helling advised the presidentially appointed Board on oversight of the worldwide Fulbright academic exchange program. In her capacity as Senior Adviser and State Department Liaison to the Smithsonian Institution, she marshalled the Smithsonian’s formidable scientific research, educational and cultural resources for U.S. Embassy outreach efforts around the world. She retired from the State Department as a member of the Senior Foreign Service in 2019.
Currently, Ms. Helling is consulting with the State Department’s National Museum of American Diplomacy on resources for its planned permanent exhibit on the history of American diplomacy. She is also a member of the Alumni Council of the University of Denver’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
Ms. Helling received a BA summa cum laude in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the University of Denver’s College of Arts and Sciences and a JD from the University of Denver’s College of Law. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, she practiced law in the areas of international trade and intellectual property in Washington, DC.
William Alvarado Rivera
Board Lead for Alumni Relations
Board Member since 2004
William Alvarado Rivera is a Roth Foundation alumnus, having received an LRE project support award in 1991 while conducting research at the University of Stockholm as a Fulbright Scholar. His work in Sweden built upon his undergraduate studies at Brown University, where he majored in Public Policy and American Institutions. LRE’s support enhanced his efforts to compare U.S. and Swedish social welfare policy, particularly with regard to the establishment of paternity and enforcement of child support obligations, which were the subject of his honors thesis at Brown.
Bill has carried his academic interest in child support and social welfare policy into his professional career. Following his graduation from Stanford Law School, he spent over seven years as a litigator in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Bill then spent 13 years at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in leadership positions with the Office of Child Support Enforcement and the Office of the General Counsel. At HHS, he litigated and advised on issues arising under federal anti-poverty programs, including child support enforcement, Head Start, foster care, child and elder abuse and neglect, refugee assistance, and public assistance for low-income families. Bill also helped negotiate bilateral child support agreements with El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica.
In 2015, Bill became Senior Vice President for Litigation of AARP Foundation, which advocates in courts throughout the country for the rights of people 50 and older, addressing diverse legal issues that affect their daily lives and assuring that they have a voice in the judicial system. As a member of the Foundation’s executive team, Bill leads one of the nation’s largest charities, helping millions of older Americans who struggle to meet their basic needs for nutritious food, safe and affordable housing, adequate income, and much-needed personal connections.
Bill has served as President of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia and has held leadership positions with the District of Columbia Bar, the American Bar Association, and various local youth-oriented non-profit organizations.
Bill lives in McLean, Virginia, with his wife and two daughters.