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Our Leadership

Ahmad Ezzeddine

Vice Provost for Global Affairs

Dr. Ezzeddine leads and manages the Office of Global Affairs and serves as a strategic thought leader for the University’s global engagement efforts. This work includes enhancing and expanding the University’s global partnerships and coordinating and collaborating with University partners to build a cohesive and campus-wide vision for global engagement.  

Dr. Ezzeddine was previously at Wayne State University in Detroit, his alma mater, where he was the senior vice provost for partnerships, workforce and international initiatives. He led oversight of all international university affiliations and partnerships. Dr. Ezzeddine also had strategic and operational responsibility for the university’s international initiatives and activities, including international recruiting, study abroad and global education and research. Most recently, he led Wayne State’s College to Career initiative to better prepare and support students, graduates, and alumni for careers and align university efforts with workforce trends and needs.

Since 2019, Dr. Ezzeddine has been a member of the board of directors for the NAFSA: Association of International Educators, a non-profit dedicated to international education and exchange. In January 2025, he became the president of NAFSA after serving as its vice president for scholarship and institutional strategy. Dr. Ezzeddine was selected Senior International Officer of the Year for 2022 by the Institute of International Education, a global not-for-profit that facilitates international education and research exchanges.

In addition to serving on the executive committee of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities’ Commission on Economic and Community Engagement, he is the chair of the board of directors of ACCESS, the largest Arab American community nonprofit in the United States.

He holds a doctorate in Business and Industrial Engineering, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees, all from Wayne State University.


Gayle Christensen

Associate Vice Provost for Global Affairs

Dr. Christensen has leadership and administrative responsibility for the University’s diverse global programming including support for international research, study abroad, student and faculty exchanges, and overseas centers.

As an expert in comparative education, Dr. Christensen has served as a consultant and researcher in the U.S. and abroad for organizations including the World Bank, Urban Institute and the Bertelsmann Foundation. Her recent research has focused on the global reach of Massive Open Online Courses and has appeared in such publications as Nature and The Atlantic and online at Slate. Her research has been featured across major media outlets including Harvard Business ReviewThe Chronicle of Higher EducationThe New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Prior to coming to the UW, Dr. Christensen spent a decade working in international education. At the University of Pennsylvania, she served as the inaugural Executive Director for Penn Global. There, she developed a range of initiatives aimed at strengthening Penn’s global engagement. As an adjunct faculty member, she taught a seminar on comparative higher education policy. She holds a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a master’s and doctoral degree from Stanford University.


Anita Ramasastry

Anita Ramasastry

Senior Advisor to the Vice Provost and Director, Faculty Global Engagement

Professor Ramasastry leads OGA’s strategic vision for faculty global engagement, fostering global community and advancing key partnerships.

Anita Ramasastry is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law and the Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the University of Washington School of Law. She is an expert in the fields of anti-corruption, commercial law, sustainable development and business and human rights. She is one of the leading academics and a pioneer in the field of business and human rights.

She currently serves as a member and past chair of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights, having been appointed as a rapporteur by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2016. Ramasastry is also a founding co-editor in chief of the Business and Human Rights Journal, published by Cambridge University Press. She is the Co-President of the Global Business and Human Rights Scholars Association and launched its annual research scholars forum.

As of 2019, Ramasastry is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption. She served a member of the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on Human Rights from 2012-2016. Ramasastry sits on the advisory boards of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, and Global Witness. In 2022, she has joined Transparency Internationals International Advisory Council In the past she has advised and worked with development organizations including the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Commission, the Commercial Law Development Program of the US Department of Commerce and USAID.

Ramasastry has been recognized by the students as the Philip A. Trautman Professor of the Year on numerous occasions. In 1998, she received the UW Distinguished Teaching Award during her second year of teaching, and in 2002, she received the UW Outstanding Public Service Award for her work focused on domestic violence.


Wolfram Latsch

Wolfram Latsch

Director, UW Study Abroad

Dr. Latsch oversees the UW’s study abroad programs and student exchanges. He works with faculty, staff, departments and partners to envision, create and promote a wide variety of global opportunities for students.

An economist by training, Dr. Latsch has taught economics and international studies at the University of Oxford, Northwestern University and at the UW, receiving several teaching awards. His academic expertise is in development economics and economic history, especially of sub-Saharan Africa and Britain. He directed the BA and MA programs in International Studies at the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies where he had appointments as lecturer, professor, and Director of Academic Services until 2018.

A native of Germany, Dr. Latsch holds master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from the University of Oxford.


Ladi Carr

Senior Director, Global Engagement

Dr. Carr is the Senior Director for Global Engagement at the University of Washington, where she supports the efforts of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs to further the strategic priorities of the University.

Before joining the UW in 2024, Dr. Carr spent over a decade in higher education focused exclusively on global initiatives and engagement. Most recently at the University of Virginia, she was chiefly responsible for developing international programs, cultivating global partnerships, managing global operations, and serving as an international ambassador for the institution at-large.

As a director for the Center for Global Initiatives at UVA’s Darden School of Business, she developed and led global executive programs in more than 35 countries worldwide.

Originally from the Czech Republic, Dr. Carr holds a Ph.D. and master’s degrees from Charles University in Prague.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ladicarr