Adele Priestley is a bilingual communications professional specializing in writing, digital content strategy, and storytelling. Her experience spans international education, humanitarian aid, and immigration, and she brings this background to her work as Communications Director at WIAP. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Education for Social Justice from Colby College, as well as a graduate degree in Strategic Communications from Purdue University.

She began her career in education, developing curriculum and teaching for a global program that empowers women in communities where access to education is limited. During those years, she lived and worked around the world and picked up additional work as a whitewater kayak photographer and travel writer. But her heart belongs to Chile, where she eventually settled for seven years.

Building a life in Chile meant navigating many of the vulnerable parts of not speaking the language: figuring out a complicated immigration process, constantly making mistakes, and experiencing the loneliness that can come with being far from home. She eventually taught herself the local slang and dialect of Spanish, built a community of her own, and came to deeply love the life she had built there. The experience gave her a new perspective on the courage it takes to immigrate, as well as a greater awareness of the privilege of having undertaken the process by choice and of knowing that the safety net of a life in the U.S. was always there to catch her.

After the COVID pandemic brought her back to the U.S. and eventually to Jackson, Adele joined the International Rescue Committee as the Digital Content and Social Media Manager for a program supporting Unaccompanied Children. She created bilingual, youth-friendly content to help explain the U.S. immigration system to minors and make life in an unfamiliar country feel less frightening. When funding for the program was cut, Adele didn’t lose the conviction that had driven her work: that everyone should have access to accurate, trustworthy information and the respect and agency to use it to build their own futures.

Outside of work, you can find Adele romping through the Tetons in running shoes or ski boots, or chasing waves around Central and South America and thriving as a mediocre surfer.