THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 81 AFSA NEWS Editorial Board Welcomes New Co-Chairs and Members The Foreign Service Journal is pleased to announce that Ambassador Jennifer Zimdahl Galt and Lynette Behnke have been named co-chairs of the FSJ Editorial Board. Both bring extensive leadership experience and deep knowledge of the Foreign Service and the FSJ to their new roles. We also warmly welcome three new members to the board: Kelly Adams-Smith, Lisa Venbrux, and Katherine Ntiamoah. Amb. Galt previously served as U.S. ambassador to Mongolia and as principal officer in Guangzhou, among many other assignments across Asia and Europe since joining the Foreign Service in 1989. Before retiring in 2024, she served on the Board of Examiners in Washington, D.C. She has been a member of the FSJ Editorial Board since May 2024. Lynette Behnke, a career Foreign Service officer since 2006, has been posted to Kyiv, London, Hungary, and Haiti. She was head of the Republic of Korea and Mongolia unit in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2022 to 2024. From 2023 to 2025, she served as the AFSA Governing Board liaison to the FSJ Editorial Board before being elected earlier this year to join the editorial board as a regular member. Kelly Adams-Smith, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, most recently served as deputy chief of mission (DCM) at the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. She has also been chargé d’affaires and DCM in Prague, economic counselor in London, and deputy executive secretary at the White House National Security Council, in addition to earlier tours in Bulgaria, Estonia, and Russia. From 2019 to 2021, she was on the faculty of the National War College. A New Jersey native, she previously served on the FSJ Editorial Board from 2010 to 2011 and has contributed to two editions of AFSA’s Inside a U.S. Embassy book. Lisa Venbrux, currently cultural coordinator in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, has served overseas in Brasília, Mumbai, Beijing, and Tegucigalpa. Before joining the Foreign Service in 2010, she was a journalist in Brussels and Prague, covering technology, privacy, and global health issues, and leading the news division of The Prague Post. She holds degrees from New York University and the London School of Economics. Katherine Ntiamoah served as a public diplomacy officer from September 2011 to September 2025. She held assignments in Mexico, Brunei, Belgium, Benin, Ghana, Pakistan, Singapore, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and at the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. She is married and a mother of three toddlers Jennifer Galt Lynette Behnke Lisa Venbrux Kelly Adams-Smith and writes about identity, diplomacy, and the everyday moments that shape us at her Substack, Still I Notice Everything. A first-generation Ghanaian-American, she holds degrees from Indiana University Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver. She speaks French and Spanish, and dabbles in Arabic. We look forward to the leadership of Jennifer and Lynette as co-chairs, and to the insights and experience that Kelly, Lisa, and Katherine will contribute. The FSJ would also like to thank outgoing board members David Bargueño and chair Vivian Walker for their years of service on the board. In connection with her outstanding service to AFSA and the FSJ Editorial Board, Walker was this year’s recipient of the AFSA Achievement and Contributions to the Association Award. n Katherine Ntiamoah
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