Ben McKelfresh

Marketing Coordinator and Study Abroad Adviser

Iowa State University

Chair, Member Engagement Committee

At Iowa State, Ben McKelfresh manages all Study Abroad Center marketing efforts including web and print communications, events, and more. McKelfresh also oversees a suite of study abroad programs in Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe. He has served as one of the cochairs on NAFSA's Marketing and Communications Member Interest Group (MIG) since 2017. Prior to joining Iowa State, McKelfresh worked at the North American Office for DIS: Study Abroad in Scandinavia. His career in international education started with an internship with DIS in Copenhagen, Denmark, and serving as a study abroad Adviser at Kansas State University. He holds a BA from DePauw University (Indiana) in German and a MA from the University of Minnesota in comparative and international development education. In college, McKelfresh studied abroad in Denmark and Germany, and has since traveled to 30 countries on five continents. He calls Des Moines, Iowa, home and lives there with his wife and two sons.