Amy Storrow (Department of State)
Editor’s note. Amy Storrow, recipient of a Public Diplomacy Achievement Award in 2009 from PDAA, received recognition as the State Department’s eDiplomat for the month of May. Below is the internal Department announcement, reprinted with permission.
Our May recipient of the eDiplomacy of the Month is Amy Storrow, Director of ECA’s The Collaboratory.
Ms. Storrow is a Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer who has been on the cutting edge on the application of technology for public diplomacy efforts, and a leading partner for a number of eDiplomacy initiatives.
Ms. Storrow worked side-by-side with eDiplomacy to plan the highly successful Tech@State: EdTech, which occurred on November 1, 2013. The event, held on the campus of George Washington University, explored the revolutionary changes that technology is bringing to education, how technology is offering new educational opportunities around the world, and is being used to enhance the United States’ diplomatic efforts. During Tech@State: EdTech, the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan announced two exciting, innovative education initiatives that Amy has been working on. First, she announced the State Department’s new MOOC Camp initiative and ECA’s partnership with online education provider Coursera to expand learning opportunities worldwide through massive open online courses (MOOCs). Her second announcement was the launch of a new initiative that Ms. Storrow leads called The Collaboratory. The Collaboratory is the leading center to integrate collaborative techniques and technologies into educational and cultural exchanges and programs, including virtual exchange programs. The Collaboratory also works with other bureaus, agencies, companies, and organizations to develop, incubate, and pilot new ideas that amplify the people-to-people relationships established during educational and cultural exchanges. Recently, Ms. Storrow and her team worked with experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to organize a virtual field trip to Mars, where middle school students from Argentina, Nicaragua, and the United States all took part in collaborative science-based activities and lessons.
Ms. Storrow has also been an active participant of the Virtual Student Foreign Service program. With the help of a virtual intern, Ms. Storrow has been able to work with a student from Trinity College in Connecticut on projects as diverse as a virtual exchange on water resources and on mapping opportunities for entrepreneurship in Africa.
Ms. Storrow’s innovative applications of technology and her continued partnership with eDiplomacy make her a fitting candidate for May’s eDiplomat of the Month.
Amy Storrow is a career Foreign Service officer. She has served in Mexico, Macedonia, and Latvia. While in Macedonia and Latvia, she and her team pioneered new programs involving writers-in-residences at American Spaces; the first Youth Advisory Council exchange program; a virtual Meet America program; and a year-long blended exchange program for business incubator personnel with Latvia and Idea Village in New Orleans. She holds degrees from Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Houston. Before joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Storrow worked as a teacher, writer, and editor.
