Our Team
Richard Kamenitzer, Board Member
Mr. Kamenitzer has over fifty years of professional experience in accounting as well as financial, governance, and executive management. He has taught at the graduate and undergraduate level of 7 U.S., 4 Chinese, and 3 South Korean post-secondary institutions, with coursework, focused on accounting, business law, business statistics, collective bargaining, governance, budgeting, and planning for educational leaders and arts management. He has also run workshops for artists and artist managers in Swaziland, Africa as Cultural Envoy with the U.S. State Department. He was the Founder of The Board Member Institute at George Mason University. He was the 2014 recipient of the prestigious Jinx Hazel Award from Arts Fairfax for major contributions to the arts in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Richard was the Director of the Arts Management Program at George Mason University for almost ten years and was bestowed with “EMERITUS” status by the Board of Visitors of the University. He has served on many arts-related boards, social service, youth, and private foundation boards, including the Washington Stage Guild, Arts Council of Fairfax County, Hamiltonian Artists, illume productions, inc., The First Alliance Foundation, the United Way of Passaic Valley, the International Youth Peace Forum, and the Association of Arts Administration Educators. He has also created eight not-for-profit organizations, gaining tax-exempt status for each. Richard holds a Bachelor’s degree in accounting, an MBA in quantitative analysis and a law degree, and has completed post-graduate work in higher education administration.
Dali Tan, Board Member
Dr. Tan (Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1997 from the University of Maryland, College Park) is a Professor of Chinese at the Northern Virginia Community College. She also served as World Language Discipline Group Chair there from the fall of 2021 to the summer of 2024. She has been a Chinese teacher in the United States for over three decades. Dr. Tan has extensive experience teaching Chinese to students from 5th grade to college, as well as adult learners and heritage Chinese school students. She has served as a member of the Editorial Review Board for the STARTALK project, and on the Board of Directors for the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL). Dr. Tan was President of the Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools (CLASS) for two terms. She was Chair of the ACTFL Community College Special Interest Group (SIG). Currently, she serves as ALD (Association of Language Departments) Executive Committee member of MLA (Modern Language Association).
She is the Co-PI of an Interactive Website: Learn Chinese, Learn Cyber Open Educational Resources, a three-year project funded by the International Research and Studies Program, U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Tan’s project experience also includes serving as Director for the NOVA STARTALK eTower Infrastructure Grant. This project produced several Open Educational Resource (OER) modules based on a famous Chinese painting called “Along the River during the Qingming Festival” — etower.nvcc.edu. She was also the co-director for a five-year research project entitled “Language Socialization in Chinese Study Abroad Homestay,” based at the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at Pennsylvania State University (CALPER). Dr. Tan also served on the College Board SAT II Chinese Committee and the AP Chinese Development Committee. Dr. Tan was the 2003 recipient of the Teacher Recognition Award through the Presidential Scholars Program by the U.S. Department of Education. She was named the 2021 post-secondary Teacher of the Year by the Foreign Language Association of Virginia (FLAVA) and the 2022 Virginia World Language Teacher of the Year by the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT).
Dr. Tan is a frequent presenter at state, regional, national, and international conferences. She has conducted many AP Chinese workshops and AP Chinese Summer Institutes, both in the United States and internationally in China and Thailand, since 2006. Dr. Tan’s research and pedagogical articles have been published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and China.
Gao Qing, Executive Director
Dr. Gao is the former Executive Director of the Confucius Institute U.S. Center – the national center for once more than 100 Confucius Institutes in the United States, where he oversaw finance, operation, programming, and development. He served as the Director of the Confucius Institute at George Mason University from 2010 – 2017. During his service at George Mason University, he was also a faculty member of Arts Management and Special Assistant to the Dean of College of Visual and Performing Arts for China and Global Initiatives. He developed various collaborative relations between George Mason University and leading Chinese arts, cultural, and educational institutions on philanthropy and arts management, as well as educational partnerships. In addition, he assisted with business development initiatives for investment and trade between East Asia and Virginia. Before joining Mason in 2010, he worked at US-China Policy Foundation – a think tank in DC. He conducted research on Sino-US cultural and political relations, and managed China Materials Service Center for four years.
In addition of his executive experience, Gao has been engaging in academic field of intercultural education for conflict resolution and peace studies. He is a member of Global Governance Summit Working Group, and has published academic works in both Chinese and English. Gao completed his Doctoral degree in Higher Education, George Mason University, Masters degree of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, and Bachelor degree from the School of Management, Fudan University.
Sadie Allen, Digital Communications Specialist
Ms. Allen is a student at the University of North Carolina with a passion for art, traveling, and cultural exchange. Before starting her education at UNC, she volunteered with the Polk County Library system and wrote on her personal blog. Sadie took a gap year through Campus Y’s Global Gap Year Fellowship, where she lived in Xi’an, China, and Split, Croatia. This experience gave her a strong passion for cultural exchange and language learning. She has studied Mandarin Chinese since middle school and traveled abroad several times. At UNC, she is majoring in Studio Art and minoring in Creative Writing and Advertising. She is involved with Honors Carolina and Chinese Conversation Club, and she hopes to connect with more organizations in the future. With the Center for Bridging Cultures, Sadie hopes to encourage more young people to learn foreign languages and experience the power of cultural exchange.
William Reeder, Deceased Founding Chair
We acknowledge with great sadness the passing of Mr. William Reeder, the founding chair of our Board of Directors. He was a passionate advocate for our mission and brought wisdom and compassion to every decision. His dedication, insight, and leadership made a lasting impact on our organization. He will be deeply missed.
Mr. Reeder was the former Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, George Mason University. As a leading arts and cultural management practitioner, he has served as Vice President and General Manager of the Washington Performing Arts Society; established the Sallie Mae Trust for Education at the Sallie Mae; Executive Director of the Levine School of Music in Washington D.C.; President of the Saint Louis Conservatory of Music; Executive Director of Opera Music Theatre International; Newark Community School of the Arts. In addition, Dean Reeder has been on the faculty and administration of Indiana University, Bloomington, and Illinois State University. For eight years, Mr. Reeder was a leading operatic tenor engaged by the Zurich, Switzerland Opera Company. As a professional singer, he performed more than 40 leading tenor roles in 15 major opera houses throughout Europe.