OBITUARY
We are sorry to report that Julia Walters-Zaitseva, the 2013 winner of the Roth
Endowment’s Ilchman-Richardson Award, died on November 9, 2013, following a
long illness. Colleagues and friends will remember her for her extraordinary
kindness and generosity and for the quality of her relationships with family, friends
and colleagues.
Born in Bethesda, Maryland, Julia’s love of language and travel led her to take
degrees from the University of Maryland in Linguistics and in English-as-a-SecondLanguage Education (1989). She put her training to use in teaching positions in
Mexico, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, in private institutions, the Peace Corps and the
English Teaching Fellows program of the US Department of State.
While in Russia Julia met and married her husband, Alexander Zaitsev, and they
moved back to the U.S. Their daughter, Velika, was born in 2002.
In the mid-1990s Julia joined the staff of the Fulbright Program in the Bureau of
Educational and Cultural Affairs. In 2002 she was recruited by the Office of English
Language Programs to help establish the English Language Specialist Program,
which was the focus of her work for the last 11 years. Known for sharing her great
expertise with humility and warmth, Julia reviewed and made many improvements
to English language teacher recruitment and English teaching programs at the State
Department.
Julia received the Ilchman-Richardson Award in June of 2013, in recognition of her
career-long contributions to the Bureau. In her memory, the Lois Roth Endowment
has made a contribution to the Velika Zaitseva Education Fund.