“It’s important for you to know what you want.”
 
http://media.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/content.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/Melis1_2.m4a
 
MELIS TUSIRAY is a motivated and resourceful leader with a passion for social service and entrepreneurship. Having worked in the public, private, and non-profit sectors nationally and internationally, she firmly believes that leaders of the future will be individuals and companies who have a holistic approach to business through sustainability and social impact.
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Workshop: How to be a great mentee

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This is a Special Correspondent Episode and part of Rebecca Picard’s #CulinaryDiplomacy series.
“Develop communication skills, develop the skills of organizing, leadership, teambuilding {etc] that allow for project management… to support outcomes, not outputs.”
http://media.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/content.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/Rebecca_Picard_guest_ep_3.m4a
 
Ambassador ERTHARIN COUSIN is a distinguished fellow of global agriculture at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  She served as executive director of the World Food Programme 2012-2017, leading the world’s largest humanitarian organization with 14,000 staff serving 80 million vulnerable people across 75 countries.
In 2009, Cousin was nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate as the US ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome. In this role Cousin served as the US representative for all food, agriculture, and nutrition-related issues. Cousin regularly represented US interest in global leader discussions, including prime ministers, foreign and agriculture ministers, academics and business executives, regarding humanitarian and development activities.  Cousin helped identify and catalyze US government investment in food security and nutrition activities supported by the USAID Feed the Future program.  Cousin convened foreign media tours resulting in millions of conventional as well social media impressions.
A Chicago native, Cousin is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago; the University of Georgia Law School, and the University of Chicago Executive Management Finance for Non-Financial Executives program. Cousin has received honorary doctorate degrees from universities around the globe.  She has been listed numerous times on the Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women” list, as the Fortune “Most Powerful Woman in Food and Drink,” on TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” list, and as one of the “500 Most Powerful People on the Planet” by Foreign Policy magazine.
 
 
 

Culinary Diplomacy with Ambassador Ertharin Cousin

This is a Special Correspondent Episode and part of Rebecca Picard’s #CulinaryDiplomacy series.








 
The Better Plate Community Columbus is a nonprofit founded to promote cross-cultural exchange through food-related community events. They are the first US-based satellite of Über den Tellerrand. They organize community events to encourage refugees, other immigrants, and the settled population to meet together over food. At these events, people from several different cultures cook, share, and discuss some of their favorite dishes. These events are donation-based to allow as many people to attend as possible.
They also coordinate refugee and other immigrant-led cooking classes. These cooking classes are led by excellent home cooks are who are passionate about food. They meet in home or community kitchens, work together to cook a meal, and then eat together. The Better Plate Community Columbus is committed to offering our classes at affordable prices and offer financial assistance.
 



MARGARET CHINN is co-founder of Better Plate Community Columbus and currently serves as Secretary of the Board. She likes trying new recipes and getting others involved in the fun. Professionally her background is in social work, teaching, and math.






 
 

AMANDA WARNER is a co-founder of Better Plate Community Columbus and is currently serving as president of the board. 
While cooking has been an ongoing passion for Amanda, recent travels sparked a deeper interest in how food can be used as a point of connection between individuals and communities. From 2014 – 2016, Amanda traveled with her husband and young son, working, playing, and eating their way through more than twenty countries on six continents. Amanda took cooking classes as she traveled, experiencing directly how food helped her connect with others and learn more about their cultures. Towards the end of the trip, she attended several events at Über den Tellerrand kochen, an organization in Berlin that organizes events designed to bring refugees and the settled population together over food. This inspired the idea to begin something similar when she returned to Ohio.
Professionally, Amanda is a consultant, instructional designer, and web developer who partners with international NGOs to design and develop interactive learning experiences (www.amanda-warner.com). She also volunteers at a local refugee resettlement agency.






KUUKUA DZIGBORDI YOMEKPE was born in Ghana and immigrated to the U.S. in 1996. She holds a BA and an MA in English from Ohio Dominican College and the University of Dayton respectively. She was a Bay Area transplant while she worked on her Masters in Theological Studies. She graduated with distinction and was awarded the Marcella Althaus-Reid award for Best Queer Essay in her graduating class. She is ABD in her MFA program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She brands herself the perpetual student.

Within the span of her life, she has inhabited multiple roles, most of which seem to have nothing in common except that the majority have something to do with education. Her adult working career began in Daycare and After-School programming and continued to Student Affairs/Residential Life work first at the University of Dayton, and later on, at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. While a graduate student at the Pacific School of Religion, she served as the Earl Lectures Coordinator for the annual Earl Lectures in Berkeley, CA. She’s worked several odd jobs at various times in between, but the most notable of them all was when she worked ...

Culinary Diplomacy with Better Plate

This is a Special Correspondent Episode and part of Rebecca Picard’s #CulinaryDiplomacy series.
“Become aware of how you’ve been socialized because that will affect how you manage your career. To create your own career, you have to have agency and strength and the confidence in who you are… and an idea of where you want to go.”
 
http://media.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/content.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/Rebecca_Picard_guest_ep1.m4a
 
KELSEY MAHER is an East Coast native, who now resides in California taste-testing her local taquerias. In 2015, she completed her MA in International Education Management at the Middlebury Institute in Monterey, CA. Prior to her graduate studies, Kelsey lived and worked in several post-Soviet countries combining her language lessons with cooking lessons. She is dedicated to fostering cross-cultural communication through food. Kelsey’s professional work includes regional marketing and programming for agricultural non-profits.
 
Check out The Culinary Citizen!
 
Special Correspondent Guest Host
REBECCA PICARD is an MA graduate in International Policy & Development from the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, CA. She is committed to intercultural communication, bringing the female voice to male-dominated spaces, and international exploration. 
Rebecca is also interested in all things food. Working in restaurants for 10 years steeped her in a passion for culinary diplomacy. She believes in food as a means for cross-cultural understanding, communication, and cooperation that can bridge divides and create peace. Viewing culinary diplomacy through the feminist lens, Rebecca sees women at the center of food movements and diplomacy, and their voices need to be heard. Connect with her on Linkedin.
 

Culinary Diplomacy with Kelsey Maher

Meet a few of our Special Correspondents to learn more about the #WomeninDiplomacy audience as we discuss our passion for International Relations and the challenges young professionals face in building our careers.
http://media.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/content.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/Special_Correspondents_Intro_3.m4a
 
MOTUNRAYO SHAFAU  •   Linkedin  |  Twitter  •  Alma Mater: Sciences Po  •  Currently nerding out about: the power of strategic communications in international relations
 
 
SPANDANA SINGH  •  Linkedin  |  Twitter  •  Alma Mater: University of California, Berkeley •  Currently nerding out about: technology and its impact on global affairs
 
 
SARAH HEYWOOD  • Linkedin  •  Alma Mater: Australian National University  •  Currently nerding out about: linguistics and language policy
 
 
ANA VERGARA  •   Linkedin  •  Alma Mater: University of Minnesota  •   Currently nerding out about: human rights, mental health, immigrants, and refugees
 
 
Learn more and meet future Special Correspondents here!
 

Introducing… Special Correspondents!

“Jump in. Check your assumptions constantly and don’t be afraid to break the mold.”
http://media.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/content.blubrry.com/womenindiplomacy/Olympics_with_Rook.m4a
 
Dr. ROOK CAMPBELL is an adjunct professor of political science, communication, and diplomacy at the University of Southern California. Rook serves as Director of Research for Fields of Green, a partnership between USC Sports Business Institute and USA TODAY Sports. They are the author of Staging Globalization for National Projects: Global Sport Markets and Elite Athletic Transnational Labour in Qatar (International Review for Sociology of Sport, 2010).  Rook’s current book manuscript is entitled Global Governance of Sport in a Digital Age: The Political Economy of Sport Integrity Regulation.

 
 
Check out Cabinet 48 and follow Professor Campbell on Twitter at @Cabinet48.

Workshop: How to be a great mentee

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