Robert Dowden came to The Catholic University of America to serve as an education abroad advisor in the Office of Global Strategies in July 2014 and became the Director in Summer of 2021. He provides program management and acts as the primary advisor to students in matters regarding education abroad. Robert is originally from Connecticut, having also lived in North Carolina and Ohio. He participated in a spring break study abroad program in France and a summer abroad program in Costa Rica while attending Gardner-Webb University as an undergraduate majoring in English Composition. Robert also lived and worked in Bogotá, Colombia as an ESL teacher before eventually pursuing a master's degree in Higher Education Administration at Kent State University.