Staff
Michael McCarry
Executive Director
Michael McCarry has led the Alliance as its Executive Director since October 1994. Prior to joining the Alliance, he spent 18 years with the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) as a Foreign Service Officer. He served as U.S. Cultural Attaché in Beijing in the years immediately following the Tiananmen Square events of 1989, and led negotiations, which resulted in the restoration of the Fulbright program after its suspension by the Chinese government. He also served as director of USIS Chiang Mai, Thailand, and as Assistant Cultural Attaché in Bangkok. He speaks Chinese and Thai.
Michael’s domestic assignments with USIA include staff director/special assistant in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, chief of Advising and Student Services, policy officer for East Asia, Voice of America branch chief for Southeast Asia, and desk officer for Southern Africa. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Michael worked as a legislative and press aide for Rep. Robert McClory (R-IL), and as a journalist in Illinois and Texas.
Michael received an M.A. from the University of Texas (Austin), a B.A. from Notre Dame, and spent a year at Melbourne University in Australia as a Rotary Graduate Fellow. He is originally from Chicago, IL.
Mark Overmann
Assistant Director and Senior Policy Specialist
Mark Overmann has served as the Assistant Director and Senior Policy Specialist at the Alliance since February 2009. Prior to joining the Alliance, Mark was as the Director of College Communications at Georgetown University, where he worked closely with the university's outreach and exchange programs to China. He also worked as a program associate for communications at the National Council for International Visitors.
Mark made his first trip abroad during college to study in Angers, France. Following his graduation with a B.A. in English from the University of Notre Dame, he taught English and studied Chinese in Northeast China’s Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region. He subsequently earned his M.A. in International Communication from American University’s School of International Service. Mark is coauthor with Sherry Mueller of Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development (Georgetown University Press, 2008) and the international career blog at http://workingworldcareers.com. He speaks French and Chinese, and originally hails from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Paula Leal
Executive Assistant
Paula S. Leal Granados has served as the Executive Assistant at the Alliance since February 2009. Paula was previously the Coordinator-Intern of CEMEX Colombia S.A in the communications and corporative affairs vice presidency office. She has also worked at the Pan American Health Organization supporting quality blood service associates in the Region of the Americas department. There she developed new forms of media and communication, which focused on the social responsibility of volunteer blood donation. During the summer of 2007, Paula was a participant in the U.S. Department of State’s Summer Work/Travel program, living and working in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
Paula received a double degree in Social Communication and Journalism from Universidad de La Sabana in Bogota, Colombia. She was editor of Estrategia offprint, which specializes in organizational communications; En Directo, the newspaper of Universidad de La Sabana; and co- editor of the Nuestra Voz, the institutional magazine of CEMEX. Paula is originally from Bogota, Colombia.
Catherine Seif
Intern/2010 Advocacy Day Coordinator
Catherine Seif is currently serving as the Alliance’s Spring intern. Catherine previously served as a staff assistant for Boston University’s Institute for Human Sciences, an organization committed to US-EU relations. There, she was responsible in-part for planning the Institute’s bi-monthly community meetings and the IHS’s biggest conference to-date on trans-Atlantic perspectives on the future of food. Catherine has also served as an intern for the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Consulate General of Ireland in Boston.
Catherine received her BA in political science with a concentration in international relations from Boston University in May 2009. Catherine participated in two study abroad programs during her college career. She spent a semester in London where she interned at the Council for Arab-British Understanding followed by a summer in Berlin with Duke University. Catherine is originally from Philadelphia, PA.
