Director of Partnerships and Programs, Polytechnic School
Ann Diedrich is the director of Partnerships and Programs, the co-director of the Global Initiatives Program and a world languages and history faculty member at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. She seeks to establish best practices in empathy-building, language acquisition, perspective-taking and global citizenship development in K-12 education. She has developed partnerships with numerous schools and organizations around the world to foster exchanges, global curricula and projects to promote student innovation and agency. Diederich majored in French, Spanish and Western European Studies at Georgetown University, researched affirmative action policy in post-Franco Spain as a Fulbright Scholar, and earned a master’s degree in French from Middlebury College. She is a member of the Boards of Trustees of the Global Education Benchmark Group, and the United Nations Association- Pasadena Chapter, where she currently serves as the president. She joined AWIU in 2020 and has helped to shape the Passport to the Future Program as co-chair of the Passport Committee and International Exchange track leader.