Dr. D’Antonio’s commitment to international service began with her first volunteer trip to Nepal in 1988 with Interplast. Between 1988 and 2008 she made more than 30 volunteer trips abroad to many developing countries including; Nepal, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand, India, China, Taiwan, Bhutan, Nigeria, Kenya and Malawi. All of her efforts were focused on training and building the capacity of local caregivers to provide increasing levels of care for individuals with cleft lip and palate in their communities. In addition to her travel and fundraising she wrote several scholarly papers, developed videos and other materials and spoke extensively to encourage education and empowerment of local care providers.

With the arrival of The Smile Train in 2000 and its logistical and financial backing, Dr. D’Antonio was able to increase her efforts. Partnering with colleagues in several host countries she was able to engage in a number of large scale projects that encompassed training of professionals across all of China, India and Sub Saharan Africa. She utilized her skills as a facilitator to help develop creative solutions for increasing speech services in regions of the world where there are no or few speech pathologists. Most notably, partnering with her colleague Roopa Nagarajan in Southern India the two speech pathologists were able to visualize and develop a program for training parents and allied health workers that has become a model for the delivery of speech services globally.