Advisory Board
The Advisory Board supports the RAISE Center in fulfilling its mission to understand and enhance experiences, engagement, and development of abroad and international students by providing thought partnership and guidance to the RAISE Center Leadership Team. As the RAISE Center enters its second year in AY 2022, the Advisory Board will support the RAISE Center Leadership Team in expanding the recently developed strategic direction into a detailed strategic plan.
RAISE Center Advisory Board members provide a diverse range of expertise and experience centered on:
- Global student engagement
- Global and intercultural competency
- Research center operations and project management
- Development of lines of inquiry
- Grant funding and management
- Partner collaborations
2020-2022 Advisory Board Members
Eylem Atakav is Professor of Film, Gender and Public Engagement at the University of East Anglia where she teaches courses on women and world cinema; gender and Middle Eastern media, and documentary. She is the author of Women and Turkish Cinema: Gender Politics, Cultural Identity and Representation (2012) and editor of Directory of World Cinema: Turkey (Intellect, 2013). She is the director of Growing Up Married – an internationally acclaimed documentary about forced marriage and child brides in Turkey; and co-director of Lifeline, a documentary that reveals the reality of working in the frontline of the domestic abuse sector in the UK during the pandemic. She is currently completing a new documentary about migrant victims/survivors of domestic violence in England.
Dr. Louis “Lou” Berends comes to CEA CAPA from Syracuse University where he most recently held positions as Director of Strategic and International Partnerships, and Director of Academic Programs under the Provost’s Office. Under Lou’s leadership, Syracuse Abroad increased study abroad participation and is ranked highly as a national leader in study abroad. Lou has worked extensively in international education at U.S. universities and providers of global education since 2000. He holds a Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago in cultural and educational policy studies with a concentration in comparative and international education.
Additionally, Lou studied at Brunel University (Uxbridge, UK), the University of Oxford (St. Catherine’s College), as well as in Rome, Italy, and has visited and conducted research in numerous countries. Lou is a first-generation college student and also comes from a low-income background and as a result is a strong advocate for increasing access to global learning for all students. Furthermore, Lou has presented many papers in various settings including Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), the Forum on Education Abroad, and NAFSA (among others). Lou’s recent publication, co-edited with Dr. Kate Patch, SIO at Grinnell College, is a book on high-impact educational practices entitled, Undergraduate Research Abroad: Approaches, Models and Challenges (2020). Lou currently serves Chair of the Forum on Education Abroad’s Research Advisory Committee.
Dr. Alan Brown is Associate Professor of English Education, Bryant/Groves Faculty Fellow, and Chair of the Department of Education at Wake Forest University. His scholarly interests include working with secondary and college students as well as middle and high school teachers and athletic coaches to critically examine the culture of sports in schools and society while connecting contemporary literacies to students’ extra-curricular interests. He organizes the Skip Prosser Literacy Program, including the program’s READ Challenge, a collaboration between Wake Forest Athletics and the Department of Education. He also leads the Paisley IB Magnet School Sports Literacy Program, a weekly after-school program for eighth-grade boys that supports youth through academic, social, and community engagement.
Nelson Brunsting, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida. Nelson’s research mission is on understanding and enhancing the wellbeing of diverse populations in academic contexts; currently he is focusing on special education teachers’ working conditions and burnout. He previously served as the Executive Director of the RAISE Center, where he led lines of inquiry on international student engagement and mapping the knowledge base in study abroad for underrepresented students.
Dr. Amelia Dietrich is the Senior Director for Research and Publications at The Forum on Education Abroad and Managing Editor of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. She joined The Forum in 2015 as a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow. Amelia’s work focuses on leading original research initiatives and supporting the publication of others’ scholarship on best practices in education abroad, maximizing the impact of education abroad for students, institutions and communities, and identifying promising practices on the leading edge. Amelia also facilitates professional development workshops on the Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad in a variety of venues and lends her expertise to project-based consultancies and comprehensive reviews. She serves on the IIE Open Doors Study Abroad Working Group and is a Certified Professional in Education Abroad.
Dr. Glass is an Associate Professor of Educational Foundations and Leadership at Old Dominion University. He takes a social psychological approach to researching issues in American higher education, with an interest in how the presence of others affects educational outcomes such as achievement, motivation, and social development. His research examines the formation and evolution of the social networks of international students who attend U.S. colleges and universities, and he is the editor of the Journal of International Students.
Dr. Harewood is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Indianapolis and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in multicultural education and social foundations where his primary role is in the preparation of interculturally competent pre-service teachers and school leaders. Dr. Harewood conducts research in the area of intercultural competency development of pre-service and inservice teachers and also regularly serves as a site team member to audit various Mayor of Indianapolis Charter Schools. Dr. Harewood is as a qualified administrator for the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and has served as a faculty member for the IDI Qualifying Seminar since 2014.
Dr. Kiang is a Professor of Psychology and MacDonough Faculty Fellow (2019-2022) at Wake Forest University. Dr. Kiang’s research focuses on self and identity, family and social relationships, and race/ethnicity. Major themes include: (1) Relational approaches to self and identity: Considering diverse aspects of “cultural identity” (e.g., ethnic-racial, gender, religious, American), what are the socialization messages that youth receive from parents, peers, and society that help them develop an understanding of who they are? Do self-evaluations and social identifications vary across relationships (e.g., parents, same-ethnic peers, different-ethnic peers) and ultimately influence adjustment?; and (2) Protective influences in development: With a focus on youth from minoritized backgrounds, she is interested in uncovering ways to promote healthy well-being and more adaptive social relationships in the face of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. What are the precise mechanisms by which protective effects might occur (e.g., through strong identities, a deep sense of social belonging, purpose in life)? Dr. Kiang began collaborating on international student engagement research in 2017.
Dr. Nielsen is the Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Global Education in the Mary Lou Fulton Teacher’s College at Arizona State University. Her interests in education and research have focused upon teacher professional subjectivities, teacher leadership, and school leadership using visual and qualitative methodologies. Ann has served as the principal investigator for multiple international initiatives such as the International Leaders in Education Program, the Argentina Teacher Exchange Program, the Exchange Program for Brazlian Awarded Public School Principals, the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program, Building Leadership for Change Through School Immersion -Saudi Arabia and YouLead Youth and Business Start Up Program–Sri Lanka. In addition to leading the implementation of multiple international initiatives, Ann has provided technical expertise and assistance in the West Bank Pre-Service Teacher Activity and the Strengthening Higher Education Access in Malawi Activity.
Ann Skinner is the Research Project Manager for Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) housed at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University. The PAC study includes collaboration and data collection across 9 countries. Ann also works as the liaison between researchers and the N.C. Department of Public Instruction on the Center for the Study of Adolescent Risk and Resilience (C-StARR). Ann serves as a supervising researcher in the Junior Researcher Programme, an international initiative to foster research experiences for early-career psychologists and behavioral scientists. Ann’s specific research focuses on family systems in times of stress, with a particular interest in examining youth externalizing behavior in cultural context.