Vicki L. Birchfield is the Executive Director of the First-Year Semester Abroad (FYSA) program, a joint initiative between OUE and the Office of International Education (OIE), and a program she helped design and launch in 2021.  She is a Professor in The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, Co-Director of the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies and Director of the study abroad program on the European Union and Transatlantic Relations. Dr. Birchfield received a DES from the Graduate Institute of International Studies from the University of Geneva, Switzerland (1993) and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Georgia (2000). Her research and teaching specializations are European politics, the European Union, comparative politics, and international political economy.  Other research and intellectual interests include the interplay of capitalism and democracy, social movements and the politics of globalization, and transatlantic relations.