Allison works with leaders from around the world in the business, government, and nonprofit sectors to help them become more powerful public speakers.

Allison currently teaches communication at the Harvard Kennedy School through graduate-level workshops and Executive Education programs and has worked with CNN analyst and former presidential advisor David Gergen on his graduate course The Arts of Communication. She is a member of Toastmasters and co-founded two clubs at Harvard.

At Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership, Allison also manages the Wexner Israel Fellowship Program, where she helps Israeli public and nonprofit leaders think strategically about ways to overcome their country’s leadership challenges.

Before coming to Harvard, Allison served as the acting Consul and director of public diplomacy at the Consulate General of Israel to New England, where she created marketing and public relations campaigns to raise public awareness of Israel. She was both a speaker and speechwriter, addressing audiences throughout New England and writing speeches for the Consulate’s diplomats.

Allison is a recent graduate and huge fan of the mid-career Master of Public Administration program (MC/MPA) at the Harvard Kennedy School and holds a bachelor of arts in Italian Language and Literature with a minor in opera performance from Boston University. She has also taken graduate-level courses in Communications Management at Simmons College. She is fluent in Hebrew and Italian, is working on her Spanish, and has studied Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Modern Greek, Polish, Portuguese, and Turkish – which means she can ask for directions in over 10 languages but can only understand the responses in about 3.  She has lived in Israel and Italy and hopes to live in a few other countries.

Allison is an amateur photographer who delights in finding the hidden beauty in everyday life. She is learning how to kiteboard and is an avid snowboarder, rock climber, and guitar-playing folk singer. One of the best moments of her life was signing a little boy’s baseball after she performed the National Anthem for the Red Sox at Fenway Park in 2004.