OIPS Staff

Any of the OIPS staff can be reached at: oip@uah.edu

As well as serving as director, Dr. John R. Pottenger is a professor of Political Science at UAH. As a university professor, Dr. Pottenger has spent over 20 years teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in classical, medieval, and modern political philosophy; American political thought; contemporary social theory; and political ethics and public policy. His published research includes two books and numerous articles dealing with problems in classical philosophy, modern political theory, contemporary Christian and Islamic political theology, science, technology, and society, and civil society. Dr. Pottenger has given numerous community lectures on contemporary social issues, including presentations on the importance of civil society to visiting delegations from the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; he has also conducted workshops on civil society in Bukhara and Termez, Uzbekistan. Dr. Pottenger also has extensive and varied experience in international activities and projects, including living in Brazil for two years. Since 1989, when he was invited to inspect space facilities of the Soviet Union as an official representative of UAH, Dr. Pottenger has made numerous visits to the Soviet Union and later some of the newly independent states (Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan).

Ms. Sarah Hemmings serves as the assistant director of the OIPS. As a dual-national (Canadian and British) who is comfortablespeaking French, Spanish, and German, Sarah is naturally inclined toward international education. She is a native of Toronto, Canada, but comes to us from Georgia, USA, where she earned her B.S. and M.S. in Conservation Ecology and Sustainable Development at the University of Georgia. An avid traveler, Sarah studied abroad in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Galapagos, Peru, Bolivia, and South Korea.

Upon completing her Masters, Sarah was awarded a fellowship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct water quality research on the Georgian and Puerto Rican coasts. She then instructed environmental studies on a field course for undergraduates studying geology, environmental studies, and American cultural studies at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Sarah is currently pursuing her Masters of Public Health in Environmental Health from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, with a concentration in International Health and Global Studies. She is looking forward to learning how to use remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) to study the impacts of climate on human diseases.


Ms. Anita L. Rathz, OIPS senior program assistant, has been heavily involved in the coordinationand development of several U.S.-Russian educational programs in conjunction with state, national, and international agencies, including the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, the Alabama State Department of Education, Moscow Aviation Institute, and Krasnoyarsk State University. She is deeply involved with the coordination and oversight of UAH sponsored student programs. These include the Partnerships for LearningUndergraduate Students (PLUS) from Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Saudia Arabia, as well as Freedom Support Act students from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. In addition to overseeing student support services as logistical coordinator, Ms. Rathz is a mentor and advisor to the international students at UAH.


Ms. Kathleen Sobai, OIPS program assistant, is a graduate of Auburn University with a degree in political science. Her family has been a host for OIPS visitors for many years, and she was previously a student assistant in the OIPS office. For the past year, Kathleen has been living in Morocco with her husband, Abbes Sobai, an alumnus of the PLUS program at UAH. There, she studied at Al Akhawayn University, Morocco’s most prestigious university, in the Atlas Mountains town of Ifrane. After graduation, she worked briefly in the capital Rabat for the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange, a binational Fulbright commission organizing adult and student exchange programs. Kathleen and her husband welcomed their first child, Sophia Carolyn, into the world this May! Congratulations!

Ms. Tammy Paltchikov concluded her tenure as the OIPS assistant director in January of 2008, and has joined the U.S. Foreign Service as a public diplomacy officer! She had been with the office since its inception in 1994, and has left a legacy of outstanding programming and excellent community relations. We wish her well and always look forward to updates about her experiences! Best wishes, Tammy!