Gretchen Cook-Anderson, MA

Gretchen Cook-Anderson, MA, associate vice president, assistant to the president for diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism, and director of diversity recruiting and advising at IES Abroad, is an award-winning marketing executive with more than 25 years of promoting global education, space and Earth science discoveries for NASA, Mars candy, entertainers in Hollywood, candidates for political office, and a host of consumer products. At IES Abroad, Cook-Anderson leads diversity- and inclusion-related marketing outreach and inclusive advising strategy. Her team management efforts have led to 151 percent growth in enrollment diversity during her 10 years at IES Abroad. In 2014 and again in 2016, her efforts garnered Diversity Abroad’s Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion in International Education Award, and she received an achievement award from IES Abroad in 2018. Cook-Anderson is a former co-chair of NAFSA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Education Abroad Subcommittee and was a founding member of the Diversity Working Group of the Forum on Education Abroad. She is active as a board member for several organizations, cares deeply about social justice and equity, and speaks publicly on related themes locally and globally each year. Cook-Anderson is an alum of Spelman College; Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies; and IES Abroad’s Nagoya, Japan, program. In 2021 Gretchen was honored with the inaugural NAFSA Award for Impact in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This award recognizes a NAFSA member who has shown sustained commitment to this mission by advocating for the interests of under-represented populations.