Donald Filer is Director of the Office of International Affairs and Associate Secretary of the University, appointed to this position in 2000. Prior to his appointment at Yale, he served in a number of capacities at Connecticut College from 1991 to 2000 including Vice President for Community and Public Affairs, Secretary of the College, and Acting Vice President for Development. He worked for former U.S. Representative Bruce A. Morrison of New Haven from 1985 to 1991.
João C. Aleixo was vice president of the Latin America Region for a commercial finance company, which specializes in providing financing to small and medium sized companies in emerging markets around the world, prior to his appointment at Yale. He has traveled through Latin America extensively. He was born in Mozambique and lived in Portugal prior to moving to the United States. He holds a master’s degree in international studies.
Sharon Butler worked in Yale’s Office of International Students and Scholars where she coordinated the University’s inaugural International Cultural Festival in 2003. While pursuing her B.A. at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, she attended l'Université Paris-Sorbonne for a year and completed academic programs at universities in Belgium and Nova Scotia, Canada. She holds a Master's in French Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
George Joseph has responsibility within the Office of International Affairs for Asia with the exception of China. He served in the Office of International Education and Fellowships Programs in Yale College and on the South Asian Studies Council in the Yale Center for International and Area Studies before joining the Office of International Affairs in October 2004. Prior to these positions involving the University's international initiatives, Joseph was a doctoral student at Yale. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Washington University in Saint Louis and graduate degrees from Yale.
Sheila Pastor served as Director of the Mead Visitor Center at Yale University from 2000-2008 where she supervised 40 student tour guides who give daily tours of the Yale campus. In addition she developed an International Ambassadors program that allows visitors to take a campus tours in eight different languages. Previously, she was the Executive Director of the Leadership Center of Greater New Haven. Sheila was also the Director of Volunteers and Children’s programming for the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven.
Fawn Wang has responsibility within the Office of International Affairs for China. Prior to her appointment in the Office of Internationsl Affairs,she was a senior program officer at the Yale-China Association where she worked for five years. She currently serves as a consultant for Lingnan Foundation and the Board of Directors for China Development Council. Wang, who has master’s degrees in English and in Library and Information Science, was previously on the faculty of Anhui University of Medical Science before she came to United States in 1987.
Aleta Wenger has responsibility within the Office of International Affairs for Africa and the Middle East. She served previously as a U.S. diplomat in American Embassies in Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria, and in the Department of State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs in Washington, D.C. She studied Arabic at the Foreign Service Institute in Tunis, and she speaks Arabic and French. She began her career with the U.S. government as a Presidential Management Intern. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco and has a Master’s in Public Administration.
