Joshua S. Fouts
Founding Director
University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy

    Joshua S. Fouts is the founding director of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, the world’s first cross-disciplinary research and training center dedicated to furthering the study of public diplomacy. He is founder and director of the "Public Diplomacy in Virtual Worlds Initiative;" co-director of the USC Institute for Network Culture; and co-founder of the USC Institute for Photographic Empowerment. Fouts is the 2007 recipient of a $550,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to study the role of foundations in virtual worlds.

Prior to launching the USC Center on Public Diplomacy in 2003, he was co-founder and director of the USC Annenberg Online Journalism & Communication Program, a center for the study of the global impact of the Internet-based journalism on policy, journalism, ethics and society. Before joining USC, Joshua spent half a decade at the United States Information Agency and the Voice of America where he lead numerous new technology public diplomacy projects throughout the world, including developing the earliest iterations of the VOA Web site, and development of the first-ever TV/radio/Internet simulcast to Asia.

Mr. Fouts is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Public Diplomacy Council at the George Washington University. He serves on the board of the International Visitors Council of Los Angeles, and the Friends of Washoe Foundation. He is on the editorial board of Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media (Sage), and Place Branding (Palgrave Macmillan).