Join the Wisconsin Intensive Summer Language Institutes (WISLI) for International Education Week for a free and virtual discussion featuring a panel of WISLI All Stars!
Learn how developing proficiency in a less commonly taught language (LCTL) can open doors and elevate opportunities academically, personally, and professionally.
Meet the Panelists
Carter Banker, Country Director for Singapore, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, manages the U.S. defense relationship with Singapore and advises senior leaders within the Department on policy decisions. She also serves as the lead for Indo-Pacific Security Cooperation, managing the prioritization of $400M + of DoD security cooperation programs for the region on an annual basis. Previously, she served as Country Director for Indonesia for over three years, with time also spent covering ASEAN and Brunei. In 2021, as the Country Director for Burma, she led the Department’s response to the military coup. Prior to joining OSD Policy in December 2020, Ms. Banker worked on Southeast Asia issues in the private sector at Albright Stonebridge Group and National Democratic Institute. From 2018-2019, she completed a Boren fellowship in Indonesia, studying Bahasa Indonesia and conducting research for her master’s thesis on the spread of Salafism on university campuses. Her research findings have been published in The Diplomat. Ms. Banker holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a B.A. in History from the Johns Hopkins University.
Tyler A. Lehrer (he/him), Assistant Professor of History at Virginia Wesleyan University, is an alumnus of SASLI (Sinhala: 2014 and 2015) and SEASSI (Thai: 2017). Tyler completed his PhD in South and Southeast Asian history at UW–Madison earlier this year. His primary research, publication, and teaching areas encompass South and Southeast Asian Buddhist lineages, European seaborne empires, transregional and transnational religious and political movements in the global south, and gender and sexual normativity in the early modern Indian Ocean.
Katy Rosenthal Jackson is a Ph.D. Student in History of Art at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Her current research explores embroidered silk garments made in China for Parsi communities in western India beginning in the nineteenth century. She studied Gujarati remotely through SASLI in 2024.
Ariana Zandi is a digital media strategist pursuing her Master’s in Public Diplomacy at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. As Creative Director of Public Diplomacy Magazine and social media intern at Made By All, she combines data-driven insights with creative storytelling to optimize digital campaigns. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Holy Cross, Ariana specializes in social media analytics and brand engagement strategies, with particular expertise in Gen Z audience behavior and digital campaign optimization. She has completed all three levels of Persian language studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, deepening her connection to Iranian culture and language.
