Category: Upcoming Events

About the Speakers

Britt Robinson is the visionary founder of & Daughters, a boutique communications firm based in Washington, D.C., specializing in data-driven storytelling and impactful communication strategies. With over seven years of experience, Britt has crafted narratives for organizations leading social impact, leveraging her background in entertainment and advocacy. At the National Association for Black Engagement with Asia (NABEA), Britt ensures that NABEA’s public-facing communications, brand, and voice align strategically with its mission and vision. Her recent initiatives include NABEA’s rebranding, the launch of the NABEA monthly newsletter, a new website, and a comprehensive communications strategy. Britt holds two degrees in Asian Studies and has worked with Liberty in North Korea, The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, International Center for Research on Women, and The Asia Foundation. Britt has traveled extensively across, Korea, China, Japan, Laos, and Vietnam for research and the occasional vacation. Her research on women’s rights and feminism in East Asia has been published in The Diplomat, Korea Pro News, and Hankyoreh.

Chadwick Eason is a Senior Consultant at Deloitte and the President and Co-founder of the National Association for Black Engagement with Asia (NABEA). At NABEA, he manages and oversees the day-to-day operations of the leadership team. Through his leadership, the organization became a 501(c)3 and gained critical partnerships with organizations. Chadwick has extensive experience working in Japan and South Korea and has been a long-standing champion of youth exchange between the U.S. and Asia. He is on the Board of Directors at International Student Conferences, Inc. where he instills diversity, equity, and inclusion best practices into student exchange conferences between the U.S. and Japan, Korea, and China. He previously worked at a Japanese education nonprofit organization overseeing change management and volunteered with Kizuna Across Cultures on U.S.-Japan student exchange.

Danielle Fallin is a program officer at the International Republican Institute, where she implements multi-year projects funded by the U.S. government focused on democracy-building efforts in mainland Southeast Asia. In this position, she monitors budgets, liaises with external stakeholders, and adapts program strategies to ensure the successful implementation of grants. Prior to this position, she organized high-profile events and published research as a program manager and research associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Her work in project management has taken her to Laos, Japan, and the Philippines.

Seth Joyner serves as Senior Program Manager for the National Committee on North Korea (NCNK). With over 15 years of program management experience, he specializes in cross-cultural training, managing strategic citizen diplomacy initiatives, and facilitating intercultural communication. Before joining NCNK, Seth served as Program Manager for the USA Pavilion Youth Ambassador Program at Expo 2020 Dubai; a US State Department exchange program implemented in cooperation with Global Ties U.S. While Seth directed recruitment and promotion efforts, the 2020 USA Pavilion Youth Ambassador cohort was the most diverse on record for the program. He completed fieldwork in Incheon, South Korea, where he designed and implemented intercultural training workshops for the student affairs office and the surrounding community while in residence at the University of Utah Asia Campus. Seth holds a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University and an MA in International Education Management with a Korean-language focus from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California.

Kayla T. Orta is the Senior Associate at the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy. Former US Department of Defense NSEP Boren Scholar to South Korea, her expertise lies in US-Indo-Pacific and US-Korean foreign relations, especially at the intersection of security and technology policy (i.e. nonproliferation, nuclear diplomacy, and civil nuclear energy markets). In her role at the Wilson Center, she oversees the Korea Center’s programmatic and strategic engagement, expanding conversations on US-Korean cooperation on security, trade, technology, and energy. She also served as Project Manager for the Wilson Center’s 2023 Commission on US-ROK-Japan Trilateral Relations. Her first book titled, Avoiding Meltdowns & Blackouts: Confidence-building in Inter-Korean Engagement on Nuclear Safety and Energy Development (Wilson Center, 2023), features insights from US and South Korean nuclear policy experts. Prior to conducting research in Seoul, South Korea, she worked in the History and Public Policy Program at the Wilson Center, spearheading research for the North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP). She holds a B.A. in International Affairs and Foreign Languages and an M.A. in International Studies from Seoul National University. Her M.A. thesis (in Korean) centered on analysis of U.S. and South Korean archival documents from the 1994 North Korean Nuclear Crisis.

Celeste Arrington is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW. She is the Director of the GW Institute for Korea Studies and Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center (2024-Present). She specializes in comparative public policy, law and social change, lawyers, and governance, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. She is also interested in Northeast Asian security, North Korean human rights, and transnational activism. Her first book was Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Governmental Accountability in Japan and South Korea (Cornell, 2016). She has published numerous articles and, with Patricia Goedde, she co-edited Rights Claiming in South Korea (Cambridge, 2021). Her next book, forthcoming in Cambridge’s Studies in Law and Society series, analyzes the legalistic turn in Korean and Japanese regulatory style through paired case studies related to tobacco control and disability rights. She received a PhD from UC Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and an AB from Princeton University. She has been a fellow at Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. GW’s Office of the Vice President for Research awarded her the 2021 Early Career Research Scholar Award. Her article with Claudia Kim won the 2023 Asian Law and Society Association’s distinguished article award.