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 Benavides

Bio and Research Interests

Martin Benavides is Director of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). Before joining IIEP, he served as Minister of Education of Peru in 2020. He oversaw the country's pre-primary, primary, secondary, and higher education systems and designed the national strategy for distance education in response to the pandemic. Between 2018 and 2020, he served as the head of Peru’s National Superintendence of Higher University Education (SUNEDU), the regulatory body of Peru's university system where he led the reform for improving the quality of higher education. He is Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (on leave) in the Department of Social Sciences. He is also Principal Investigator at the Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE, on leave), His research in education offered institutional perspectives on the expansion and quality of university education and reforms in basic education, but also on understanding persistent inequalities. He also contributed to Latin American literature on childhood and violence, and on inequality, ethnicity and social mobility. In 2006-2007, Martín was Research Director at GRADE, then he was its Executive Director from 2008 to 2014. He was visiting researcher at CEPED/Institut de Recherche pour le Développement – Université de Paris.in France and Fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Martín holds a PhD in Sociology from Penn State University. 

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.

Miri Yemini 

Bio and Research Interests

Miri Yemini, PhD, is a Professor at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, renowned for her work in youth studies, global citizenship education and educational policy. With over 100 publications, Dr. Yemini's research spans diverse areas, including youth activism, democratic civic education, and recently the intersection of education and health. Her scholarly contributions have significantly advanced the understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing young people in contemporary society. Her current research focuses on conceptualizing youth health within the context of global crises, exploring how policies and lived experiences shape the well-being of young people in diverse cultural settings.

Beyond her academic achievements, Dr. Yemini is committed to translating research findings into actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners. She actively engages with stakeholders to inform evidence-based interventions and policies that promote equitable and supportive environments for youth development. She is a holder of European Research Council Consolidator Grant and a recipient of several excellence awards. 

Nancy Butler Songer

Bio and Research Interests

Nancy Butler Songer, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita and recent Associate Provost of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education at the University of Utah. In these roles, Songer supports and studies innovative teaching and learning in STEM education from pre-K through university. With her research team, Songer focuses on designing educational innovations to promote critical thinking in science, environmental awareness, and greater interactivity and participation in science careers. Songer received a Presidential Faculty Fellowship from President Clinton and two Fulbright awards (Turkmenistan and Brazil). Songer was co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee authoring the report, Science and Engineering for Grades 6-12: Investigation and Design at the Center (National Research Council, 2019), and served on two additional National Academies of Sciences committees. Other awards include being named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Women in STEM Superhero and a Computerworld Smithsonian Award for early work exploring the Internet's educational value. 

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. 

Patricia Bromley

Bio and Research Interests

Patricia Bromley is Associate Professor of Education, Environmental Social Science, and (by courtesy) Sociology at Stanford University. She is Co-Director of Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS), and Director of the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANCOR). Tricia’s research spans a range of fields including comparative education, organization theory, sociology of education, and public administration and policy.  Her work focuses on the historical rise and globalization of a liberal culture emphasizing rational, scientific thinking and expansive forms of rights, as well as contemporary attacks on this culture.  Empirically, much of her research focuses on two settings – education systems and organizations. Recent publications examine pushbacks against liberal culture in the form of growing restrictions on civil society and declining emphases on education reform.