Lisa (Rau) Sylvester is Editorial Manager at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD), an organization that trains diplomats and advances global public engagement and cultural relations.

At CPD, she oversees the Center's storytelling including a weekly global newsletter, the CPD Blog, all multimedia, a magazine-style annual report, communication materials, digital stories and social media. She launches and supervises branded initiatives such as The Public Dipocast podcast, in-house animation and over 30 original videos produced in LA, D.C., Seoul, Brussels, Berlin and Delhi featuring diplomats, foreign relations experts, international leaders and more.

Prior to public diplomacy, she worked in documentary film, marketing, communications and journalism. At the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, she created videos and graphic design about health and wellness. As a film editor and producer, she contributed to GOOD Magazine, National Science Foundation and independent projects including a feature film. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, NBC Los Angeles and UCSF Today.

She holds an M.A. in Journalism from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where she was an Annenberg Fellow and Supervising Producer for USC Impact, an award-winning documentary TV show. She holds two B.A.s summa cum laude and "Hood Recipient" distinction from San Francisco State University in Speech Communications and English/Creative Writing. As a speech & debate competitor, she was named "All-American" by the American Forensics Association and coached public speaking at Glendale Community College and Wilshire Academy in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

A native Spanish speaker by way of Colombia, she loves learning languages such as German, Russian and the Korean writing system.