Lorin W. Anderson
Carolina Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of South Carolina (USA)

Bio and Research Interest

Professor Anderson spent his entire academic career at the University of South Carolina, arriving in August, 1973, and retiring in August, 2006.  During his career at the University he taught graduate courses in research design, curriculum development, assessment, and evaluation.  Since his retirement, he has spent his time consulting with educators and policy makers on the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, curriculum development, and effective teaching strategies for children of poverty in the United States, Eastern Europe, and South America.   His primary research interests are the nurturing of young educational researchers, the allocation and productive use of school time, and improving the quality of education for economically-disadvantaged children and youth.  In 2003, he co-founded the Center of Excellence to Prepare Teachers of Children of Poverty, which is located at Francis Marion University.  He has established an endowed fund at the University of South Carolina to support first-generation college students who aspire to become educators.

Ludger Woessmann

Professor of Economics, University of Munich
Director, Ifo Center for the Economics of Education

Bio and Research Interest

Ludger Woessmann is Professor of Economics at the University of Munich and Director of the Ifo Center for the Economics of Education at the Ifo Institute. His main research interests are the determinants of long-run prosperity and of student achievement. He uses microeconometric methods to answer applied, policy-relevant questions of the empirical economics of education, often using international student achievement tests. Special focusses address the importance of education for economic prosperity – individual and societal, historical and modern – and the importance of institutions of the school systems for efficiency and equity. Further research topics cover aspects of economic history, economics of religion, and the Internet. His work was rewarded, among others, with the Gossen Prize of the German Economic Association, the Young Economist Award of the European Economic Association, the EIB Prize of the European Investment Bank, and the Bruce H. Choppin Memorial Award of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Professor M. Beatrice Ligorio

Full Professor, University of Bari (Italy)

Professor M. Beatrice Ligoria teaches Educational Psychology and a specialized course on E-learning. She a co-founder of the Collaborative Knowledge Building Group (www.ckbg.org) and is the main editor of the journal Qwerty.   She is currently member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Association of Psychology (AIP) for the section of Developmental and Educational Psychology. She has been a member of EARLI and the ISCAR Executive Committee. She has been nominated by the Minister of Education, Instruction and University as a member for the National Scientific Qualification.  Her research interests lie in the areas of educational technology, innovation in education, communities, identity, learning organization, intersubjectivity, blended and mobile learning, dialogical approach, virtual environments, sustainable learning, knowledge building, social networks and web-forum in education. 

Marc Depaepe
Professor of History of Education and History of Psychology
University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Campus Kulak, Kortrijk

Research Interest

Researcher at the University of Leuven (1977), Lecturer (1984), Assistant Professor (1990), Professor (1993) and Extra-ordinary and Ordinary Professor 1996/2000). Served previously as Head of the department of Educational Sciences at Leuven (2001-2004), Head of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Kortrijk (2004-2009), and Coordinator of the Human Sciences at Kortrijk (2007-2009). Lectures at the campus Kortrijk: history of education and history of behavioral sciences, and at the main campus in Leuven: history of modern educational systems. His main research interests are: 1. History of educational and behavioral sciences, especially pedology, experimental pedagogy, and educational psychology; 2. History of education at large in Belgium (especially primary education); 3. International historiography of education (including theoretical, methodological and conceptual issues); 4. History of colonial and postcolonial education (especially Congo).

María de Ibarrola

Professor and Researcher, Cinvestav 3E,
Department of Educational Research, Center for Research and Advanced Studies, Mexico

Bio and Research Interest

Born in Mexico City, she studied Sociology in the Faculty of Political Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Obtained a Master’s Degree in Sociology in the University of Montreal, P.Q. Canada, and a Doctor’s in Science degree (Educational Research) at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Mexico. 

She has been a National Researcher since 1984, in the highest Rank since 1993.

Her career in Educational Research allowed her to work as an educational researcher ( and learn to do so by experience )  in  three of the main educational Research centers in Mexico: Centro de Estudios Educativos A.C. (México), the first modern educational Research center in the country,  and in the Commission for New Teaching Methods of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where she started and developed a line of research on curriculum design. She was also the founder of the Sociology of Education course at the Faculty of Social and Political Studies of the said University.

Maris A. Vinovskis
University of Michigan Bentley Professor of History, Institute for Social Science Research Professor, and Professor at the Gerald R. Ford of Public Policy.

Bio and Research Interest

Vinovskis was born in Riga, Latvia and is a naturalized citizen of the United States.  He was Deputy Staff Director to the U.S. House Select Committee on Population in the late 1970s and a frequent consultant on population and adolescent pregnancy issues in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the early 1980s. He worked in the U.S. Department of Education in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations on educational research and policy. He was a member of the congressionally-mandated Independent Review Panels for Goals 2000 and No Child Left Behind during both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He also was a member of the Bush-Cheney Transition Education Advisory Committee.

Martin Carnoy

Bio and Research Interest

Professor Carnoy is the Vida Jacks Professor of Education and Professor of Economics at Stanford University, where he has served on the faculty since 1969.  He is a labor economist with a special interest in the political economy of the educational system.  He specializes in comparative analysis.  At Stanford he teaches courses in the economics of education in a global environment and resource allocation.

Nicholas C. Burbules

Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor
Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Bio and Research Interest

Nicholas C. Burbules is the Gutgsell Professor in the Department of Educational Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

His primary research areas are philosophy of education; teaching through dialogue; professional ethics; technology issues in education; and critical social theory.

Prof. Dr. Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia
Full Professor, Chair of Business and Economics Education, JGU Mainz

Bio and Research Interest

Professor Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia has been Chair of Business and Economics Education at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), Germany, since 2006. She earned her doctoral degree from Humboldt University of Berlin in 2004 and her postdoctoral qualification in 2006. She has published widely on empirical educational research in vocational and higher education. She has directed numerous externally funded national and international research projects and has been coordinating the national research program ‘Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education (KoKoHs)’ since 2011. Her research has earned various awards and honors. She is a member of many national and international advisory and editorial boards and serves as an expert consultant to ministries, foundations, and international journals.

Oon-Seng Tan

Bio and Research Interest

Professor Tan is the Director of the Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.  He also is the Chen Yidan Visiting Global Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.  Previously Professor Tan was the Director of the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore, where he played a significant role in enhancing teacher education and education research.  He also served as Dean of Teacher Education at NIE where he spearheaded the Teacher Education for the 21st Century (TE21) initiative as a major milestone innovation for teacher education both nationally and internationally.