Gary Stahl 2009

Gary L. Stahl

BA Spanish & International Studies ’83
Santiago, Chile

For nearly 15 years, Gary Stahl has meant the world to children of the world through his work at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

For the past five years he has been deputy director of the public-sector alliances and resource mobilization office of UNICEF. He has worked to provide basic education and water to children worldwide, has brought protection services to hundreds of thousands in camps in post-genocide Rwanda, has found innovative ways to include people of the Amazon and Atlantic coast of Nicaragua in national social service systems, and has helped the displaced in earthquake-plagued areas of Pakistan.

Stahl began his career wanting to use the Spanish and Portuguese language skills he had honed in college as a Peace Corps volunteer and freelance interpreter. But his work as an interpreter led him to find his true passion: working to ensure human rights for the world’s littlest humans.

In addition to his undergraduate study at ISU Stahl attended the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a John F. Kennedy Fellow and earned a master’s of public administration in 1994. In 2005 Stahl received the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Alumni Professional Achievement Award in Foreign Languages & Literatures.

Stahl recently became the father of twin daughters Patricia and Julia, born May 14, 2009. He is a life member of the ISU Alumni Association.