Janice Helwig is a senior policy advisor focusing on the countries of Central Asia and Afghanistan, as well as trafficking in persons. She joined the Commission in 1994, and has extensive expertise on the procedures, functioning, and history of the OSCE. In addition to participating in many OSCE events, conferences, and election observations, she has worked on numerous OSCE Ministerial and Summit documents, including those focused on promoting human rights, combating trafficking in persons, combating sexual exploitation of children, minority issues, gender equality and elections.
Prior to joining the U.S. government, she was an associate curator at the J.B. Speed art museum in Louisville, KY, where she worked on one of the first exhibitions organized directly between U.S. and Soviet museums on Russian Constructivist Theater Design as well as a permanent exhibition of Roman funerary art.
Janice holds a B.A. in History and Classics and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Louisville, where she was an N.B. Nettleroth Merit Scholar, a Hite scholar and a National Merit Scholar. She has knowledge of German, French, Spanish, Albanian, ancient Greek, and Latin.