KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

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DIRECTOR
DONNA ELLIS

ICED: CURRENT PRESIDENT

Dr Donna Ellis is the Director of the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo in Canada.


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DIRECTOR DONNA ELLIS

Since 1994, Dr Donna Ellis has supported teaching development for Waterloo’s instructors at all levels and promoted the importance of teaching and learning at her institution. In her role as director, she oversees the strategic direction of the Centre’s work, which focuses on effective teaching via face-to-face teaching, blended learning, emerging technologies, integrative and experiential learning, Indigenization, decolonization, and anti-racism. The Centre for Teaching Excellence provides individual instructor consultations, workshops and events, online resources, curriculum and program review consultations, and research and evaluation support.

Donna also engages in both research and institutional-level projects about teaching and learning. Her scholarly work focuses on instructional innovations, institutional teaching culture, and leadership of teaching and learning centres. She serves as a reviewer for higher education journals, and has an Adjunct Assistant Professor appointment in Waterloo’s Management Engineering department.

Donna has a strong service commitment to the educational development field. She is the current President of the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED) and a former president of the U.S.-based Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network.

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PROFESSOR
ANGELA OWUSU-ANSAH

Angela brings more than thirty years of experience in education in Africa and the United States; and is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi education honor society.


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PROFESSOR ANGELA OWUSU-ANSAH

She's an activist for higher education quality serving on national university accreditation agency Boards such as the Ghana Tertiary Education Council (GTEC) and served 18 years on the United States Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP, formerly NCATE).

As an education leader, Angela served as Elon University's Associate Dean of the School of Education and Associate Dean of Access and Success, Samford University's Assistant Dean of Education Assessment, and currently, Ashesi University's Provost. She curates innovative approaches, such as the scholarship of teaching and learning to improve student learning, faculty optimization, and research capacity building to improve higher education experiences and outcomes. She strongly advocates incorporating eLearning because of its benefit to the academically marginalized.

Locally and across Africa, she contributes to Ashesi's collaboration to mentor and share best practices among 70+ African universities to bring about systems change and elevate higher education's impact in Africa. She participates in the thought leadership of framing Ashesi's entrepreneurship ecosystem and Ashesi's Center for African Popular Culture to foster entrepreneurial thinking and appreciation of Africa's value.

Her research interest is in impact evaluation and change in Africa's higher education, specifically digitized higher education instruction, higher education teaching and learning as a science, intercultural understanding among African students, and African women in Higher Education leadership.

prof-kuria

PROFESSOR
MIKE KURIA

Prof. Mike Kuria is the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Commission for University Education (CUE) in Kenya.



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PROFESSOR MIKE KURIA

He served as the founding Secretary General of the East African Quality Assurance Network (EAQAN). Between 2011 and 2015, he coordinated an initiative to develop the East African Community (EAC) regional quality assurance system for higher education, in partnership with DAAD’s Nairobi office. From 2016 - 2022 served as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Inter-university Council for East Africa.

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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
MAYS IMAD

Mays is a Gardner Institute Fellow and an AAC&U Senior Fellow within the Office of Undergraduate STEM Education. 


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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MAYS IMAD

Dr. Imad’s research focuses on stress, self-awareness, advocacy, and classroom community, and how these impact student learning and success.

She received her doctoral degree in Cellular & Clinical Neurobiology from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. She then completed a National Institute of Health-Funded postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Arizona in the Department of Neuroscience. She joined the department of life & physical sciences at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona as an adjunct faculty member in 2009 and later as a full-time faculty member in 2013. During her tenure at Pima, she taught Physiology, Pathophysiology, Genetics, Biotechnology, and Biomedical ethics. She also founded Pima’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). She is currently teaching at Connecticut College within the Biology Department.

Mays is a Gardner Institute Fellow and an AAC&U Senior Fellow within the Office of Undergraduate STEM Education. Dr. Imad’s research focuses on stress, self-awareness, advocacy, and classroom community, and how these impact student learning and success. Through her teaching and research she seeks to provide her students with transformative opportunities that are grounded in the aesthetics of learning, truth-seeking, justice, and self-realization.

Outside of the classroom, Dr. Imad works with faculty members across disciplines at her own institution and across the country to promote inclusive, equitable, and contextual education–all rooted in the latest research on the neurobiology of learning. A nationally-recognized expert on trauma-informed teaching and learning, she passionately advocates for institutions to make mental health a top priority and to systematically support the education of the whole student.

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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
KASTURI BEHARI-LEAK

ICED: PAST PRESIDENT

Dr Kasturi Behari-Leak is Associate Professor in Higher Education Studies and Dean of the Centre for Higher Education Development at the University of Cape Town.

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ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR KASTURI BEHARI-LEAK

She is Director of the Academic Staff and Professional Development Unit in CHED and leads a national collaborative project on academic staff development agency.

As co-chair of the Curriculum Change Working Group, she led university-wide engagements on decolonisation of the curriculum and has published in the field of higher education studies.

She teaches on HES post-graduate programmes and convenes HELTASA’s University Staff Doctoral Programme. She was President of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa and is Past President of the International Consortium of Educational Development (ICED). She serves on the research advisory committee of the World Universities Network and is part of several national and international research consortia, focused on HE. She serves on editorial boards and advisory groups globally.

AFELT: PRESIDENT

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PROFESSOR WANJA
TENAMBERGEN

Associate Professor of Health Systems Management and AFELT President.

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PROFESSOR WANJA TENAMBERGEN

Wanja Tenambergen is an Associate Professor of Health Systems Management. She is the Deputy Vice Chancellor - Academic Affairs at Riara University in Kenya. Prior to her appointment as the DVC Academics at Riara University, she served as the Director of Research, innovation and Extension and a Professor in the Department of Health Systems Management at Kenya Methodist University. Her research interest is in strengthening health systems and quality of learning and teaching at higher learning institutions. Her vision is to provide relevant inputs to the advancement of higher education through transformational teaching & research methods. She advocates for creating partnerships with organizations and local communities to advance quality of learning and research. Wanja has a PhD in Public Health (Health Financing) with over 15 years’ experience in teaching and research in higher education. She has vast experience in managing projects and creating linkages to strengthen training curricula and teaching faculty development.

AFELT: SECRETARY GENERAL

MARY

MARY KIGURU

Mary Kiguru is the ICED24 Coordinator. She is a founder member of AFELT and serves as the executive secretary.

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MARY KIGURU

As a learning designer, Mary’s focus is on created learning spaces that promote competency development and equip students to succeed as leaders and find gainful employment. Currently Mary is steering the development of new teaching strategies for faculty that is geared at competency-based learning in higher education. She is co-designer of the Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA) Model. Mary also manages an employability program with Education for All Children, an employability launchpad that works with students from different universities in Kenya.