January Episode of Pali Podcast to Feature Ann Kerr-Adams

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

The Pali Podcast returns this week with hosts Maryam Zar and Steve Cron, who will interview Palisadian Ann Kerr-Adams: an international figure, head of UCLA’s Fulbright Scholar Enrichment Program and mom to Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr.

“Kerr is now in her 70s and is the mother of, as she likes to say, ‘two PhDs, an MBA and an NBA,’” Zar shared.

A native Californian, Kerr-Adams attended Occidental College in the 1950s, when she decided to take a year and study abroad her junior year in Lebanon. There she attended the American University in Beirut, where she met her future husband, Malcolm Kerr.

She eventually earned her master’s degree and taught at the AUB until her husband was assassinated in 1984.

“Three generations of the Kerr family have devoted themselves to amity and understanding between people of different nations, especially the United States and the Mideast: Ann Kerr-Adams and her first husband, Malcolm Kerr; his parents, who taught at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon; and Ann and Malcolm Kerr’s four children, whose careers stretch across agricultural economics, English politics and ‘Brexit,’ national security and professional basketball,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Today, she serves as the director of Southern California’s Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program, teaching “U.S. values versus U.S. interest in greater Middle East Diplomacy” and “Perception of the U.S. Abroad, discussions with Fulbright Scholars.”

Kerr-Adams is also a Board of Trustee member of the AUB, member of the Advisory Board of the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy and Council on Foreign Relations, founding member and past chair of the Leadership Council of the Churches for Middle East Peace and published author.

“We will talk to her about her life in the Palisades, what it means to her when she draws the parallels between her life here and her friends that she has written about from her university days in Beirut, who still live in the region and some have experienced displacement,” Zar said.

“We will ask about the significance of her work at UCLA and teaching the Fulbright classes, which impact the future of the world through the emerging leaders that come through her door.”

The hosts also plan to touch on her personal life as an American woman, a mother, her son, and her community involvement and aspirations at a local level.

This episode of Pali Podcast follows the December episode, which featured a one-hour discussion between Cron, Zar and Councilmember Mike Bonin.

Episodes of the podcast will offer an interview highlighting extraordinary lives and their accomplishments you might not otherwise have a chance to meet—with two hosts that boast deep ties to the community.

Each third Thursday of the month, listeners can check out the Post to find out who the featured guest will be before the episode is released.

To listen to episodes of the Pali Podcast, visit palipost.com/palipodcast.