Speakers and moderators

Michael James is a Branch Chief in the Office of Private Sector Exchange Program Administration (OPA), for the team that monitors the Summer Work Travel and Camp Counselor categories. Michael started working for the Department of State in 2006 in the language school at the Foreign Service Institute after completing an M.A. degree in International Development at the University of Denver’s Joseph Korbel School of International Studies. Michael’s family hosted short-term high school students when he was a teenager. As a college student, Michael spent a semester studying in Moscow, Russia, and also did a work and travel program in Melbourne, Australia. Mike is a self-professed data nerd who still likes working on spreadsheets when he gets home from work (but different projects). He and his wife love their dog, their house in Alexandria, and traveling whenever they can.