COIL Connect Advisory Board
COIL Connect has appointed an Advisory Board made up of acknowledged internationalization and COIL experts from around the world. They will meet three times a year to guide our efforts. Our initial Advisory Board meeting will take place in late August, 2024.
Olga Aksakalova, Advisory Board
Olga Aksakalova is Professor of English and COIL Coordinator at LaGuardia Community College. She founded the COIL program at LaGuardia in 2016 and since then supported the development of over 100 COIL projects. Her research, teaching and curricular/administrative projects emphasize transnational approaches.
Alfonso Diaz, Advisory Board
Alfonso Díaz Segura is Corporate Director for Business Operations and Internationalization of CEU Educational Group in Spain. He is responsible for international policies at the three CEU universities and has implemented the CEU Global Classroom to foster VE. He conducted the process to gain the CeQuInt certificate the European Consortium of Accreditation on Quality in Institutional Internationalization, being the first Spanish Institution to achieve it. He has also recently organized and host IVEC 2022. Alfonso is also steering member of the EAIE’s Expert Community Internationalization at Home.
Keiko Ikeda, Advisory Board
Keiko Ikeda is Professor of International Affairs, and KU-COIL Coordinator at Kansai University. Recently, she became the principal project manager for the Inter-University Exchange Project funded by MEXT, 2018-2022 ("COIL Plus Program to Develop Global Career Mindset"). Keiko is also Vice-Director of the Institute for Innovative Global Education (IIGE) at KU.
Samia Chasi, Advisory Board
Samia Chasi is a practitioner, scholar, and facilitator in higher education internationalisation with 25 years of experience in this field. She is currently the Manager: Strategic Initiatives, Partnership Development and Research at the International Education Association of South Africa. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Education (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg), a Master of Philosophy in Engineering Management (University of Johannesburg) and a Master of Arts in English, Russian and Sociology (University of Rostock).
Mariam Raza, Advisory Board
At Conestoga College, in my role as Associate Director, Global Initiatives and Partnership Development, I work closely with the international office and the academic schools to plan, develop, and manage the expansion of outbound global initiatives for students and faculty, including education abroad programming, research partnerships, virtual exchanges (COIL), and on-campus activities helping to internationalize the Conestoga Community. My doctoral dissertation in Educational Leadership for the University of Western Ontario addressed the implementation of virtual global initiatives (COIL/VE) in post-secondary institutions.
Henry Shepherd, Advisory Board
Henry Shepherd was Assistant Director of the Stevens Initiative from 2015 until early 2024. In that role, he contributed to grant making and grant oversight, monitoring and evaluation, and research as well as to team leadership, strategic planning, and donor engagement. Previously, he worked at the virtual exchange organization Soliya and studied at Georgetown University and at Brown University, where he helped launch Strait Talk, an initiative that conducts youth dialogue across the Taiwan Strait.
