Julia Phelan Sylla has served as Director of Programs at Qatar Foundation International since 2019 where is she responsible for the direction and delivery of QFI's programs, grants and activities supporting the teaching and learning of Arabic. Julia has worked in the international education field for over 15 years at both the secondary level and in higher education. Prior to QFI, she worked at American Councils for International Education where she led the implementation of U.S. Department of State-sponsored overseas programs for high school students to study languages intensively in eight countries, including Jordan and Morocco. She was the Supervisor of Academic Programs for the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service from 2012-2015. Prior to that, Julia served as Program Director for the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program. Julia has a master's degree in International Education from George Washington University.