While at Skidmore, James focused on global politics and international development, studying abroad in Guatemala, Cuba, and with the International Honors Program in India, South Africa, and Brazil. Having caught the travel bug, after college he moved to Madrid, Spain, where he taught English in a bilingual school and designed lessons on American sports and music to connect culture and language learning. He then served as a Peace Corps Youth Development Volunteer in Peru, coaching after-school sports clubs and partnering with local schools to create youth leadership and career readiness programming. While living abroad in Spain and Peru, he gained fluency in Spanish. After earning his master’s degree, James became a director for PH International, a Vermont-based nonprofit implementing U.S. Department of State–funded Sports Diplomacy exchanges. He organized exchange programs for delegations of athletes, coaches, and sports administrators—both welcoming international visitors to the U.S. and traveling abroad with American delegations to countries including Bulgaria, China, Mongolia, Micronesia, Montenegro, Nicaragua, and Nepal—facilitating exchanges focused on leveraging sports toward women’s empowerment, disability rights and inclusion, and youth leadership. James is now a high school Spanish teacher at Vermont Commons School, an alternative school where he both teaches in the classroom and leads immersive weeklong experiential trips three times each year. He has previously led Putney’s Service Peru program.