Sarah Barron
Assistant Program Officer, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals

Originally from Wenatchee, WA (the apple capital of the world), Sarah Barron moved to the Big Apple in July 2005. At 16 she spent a semester at a Waldorf school near Frankfurt, and later studied at the University of Vienna as part of her German major. After graduating from Wellesley College in 2004, Sarah taught English in Riesa, Germany, on a Fulbright teaching fellowship. She's thrilled to be in NYC working on the other side of an intercultural exchange program.

Will Maier
Assistant Program Officer and Alumni Coordinator, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals

Will, who is originally from Baltimore, MD, first became interested in international exchange while taking part in a brief high school exchange to Münster, Germany, where he made personal contacts that would ensure his return to Germany several times over the following years. He was able to travel to various places throughout the world while studying International Relations at Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland, and spent summers studying German language and literature in Berlin. He moved to New York in June 2005, and was happy to join CDS in September of that year. In August 2006 he was promoted to Assistant Program Officer.

Anna Oberle
Program Director, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program

Anna F. Oberle was born in Munich and grew up in Tuebingen, an old university town about 30 miles south of Stuttgart, Germany. She studied at the Freie Universitaet Berlin from 1993 to 2000 and received Masters degree, majoring in History at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute and in North American Studies at the John F. Kennedy Institute. She joined CDS International in 2000 as the Program Assistant for the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals (CBYX). In July 2003 she was promoted to Program Director of CBYX.

Anja Strnad
Program Assistant, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals & Professional Development Program

Anja grew up in Cottbus, Germany, and first became fascinated by foreign cultures and languages on a high school trip to Montreal, Canada. This tour inspired her to travel throughout Europe as well as participate in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals, which brought her to Valdosta, GA, for one year. After returning to Germany, Anja pursued a degree in European Studies at Magdeburg Universität and spent six months studying in Murcia, Spain. Her interest in international exchange programs was solidified by subsequent internships at InWEnt in Cologne and the Goethe-Institut Dresden. Anja was excited to join the CDS team in November 2007 and to live in New York.

Beth Uding
Program Assistant, Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program

Originally from a small town in Missouri, Beth prefers city-life and is very excited to live in New York. She participated in Wayne State University's Junior Year in Munich program in 2005-06 and graduated from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul in May 2007 with a BA in German Studies and English. Before coming to CDS, Beth taught English at a grade school in Berlin on a short internship sponsored by the Checkpoint Charlie Foundation. She looks forward to seeing what a reciprocal exchange program looks like “behind the scenes.”