IAFOR > The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii (IICEHawaii) > IICEHawaii2021 > Organising Committee

Organising Committee

The Organising Committee of The 6th IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii (IICEHawaii) is composed of distinguished academics who are experts in their fields. Organising Committee members may also be members of IAFOR's International Academic Advisory Board. The Organising Committee is responsible for nominating and vetting Keynote and Featured Speakers; developing the conference programme, including special workshops, panels, targeted sessions, and so forth; event outreach and promotion; recommending and attracting future Organising Committee members; working with IAFOR to select PhD students and early career academics for IAFOR-funded grants and scholarships; and overseeing the reviewing of abstracts submitted to the conference.

  • Failautusi ‘Tusi’ Avegalio
    Failautusi ‘Tusi’ Avegalio
    University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, USA
  • Xu Di
    Xu Di
    University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Curtis Ho
    Curtis Ho
    University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA
  • Barbara Lockee
    Barbara Lockee
    Virginia Tech, USA
  • James W. McNally
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging
  • Alex Means
    Alex Means
    University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USA
  • Michael Menchaca
    Michael Menchaca
    University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
  • Sela V. Panapasa
    Sela V. Panapasa
    University of Michigan, USA
  • Hiagi M. Wesley
    Hiagi M. Wesley
    Brigham Young University – Hawaii, USA

Previous Organising Committees

View details of organising committees at past IICEHawaii conferences via the links below.

IICEHawaii2020IICEHawaii2019IICEHawaii2018
IICEHawaii2017IICEHawaii2016
Failautusi ‘Tusi’ Avegalio
University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, USA

Biography

Papalii Dr Failautusi ‘Tusi’ Avegalio is the director of the multi national award winning Pacific Business Center Program (PBCP) and the executive director of the Honolulu Minority Business Enterprise Center (HMBEC) at the UH Mānoa Shidler College of Business. A former research fellow with the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East-West Center, Avegalio is the first native from Oceania to become a professor at the Shidler College of Business. He has consulted extensively for traditional chiefs, village councils, governments, colleges and universities, financial institutions, multi-national corporations and businesses nationally and internationally. He also has been the primary organiser of many events, such as the University of Hawai‘i Stars of Oceania to recognise the contributions of Pacific Islanders to the State, Nation and World inaugurated in 2006 with most recent event in American Samoa in 2017, and Regional & Global Breadfruit Summits in American Samoa (2013), Hawai‘i (2016), and the recent 2017 Breadfruit Summit in Apia, Samoa. Dr Tusi has a doctorate in educational administration from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is a Polynesian alii and senior heir of the Malietoa warrior king line of Samoa holding the traditional title of ‘Papali’i’ from Savaii, Samoa.

Previous IICEHawaii Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2018) | "Surviving and Thriving: Education in Times of Change"
Xu Di
University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA

Biography

Xu Di (许笛) is a professor in the department of Education Foundations, College of Education, University of Hawai’i-Mānoa. She is a member of the board of examiners for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE, now Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation [CAEP]), which has provided national accreditation for teacher education programs in the United States since 2007. Her recent publications focus on bridging Eastern and Western philosophy for educational practices and include Chinese Philosophy on Teaching & Learning: Xueji《学记》 in the Twenty-First Century (2016), The Wisdom from the East: A Holistic Theory and Practice of Health and Wellness (2013), Spiritual Heritage and Education Today (2013), Taoism: Origin, Essence, and Practice (2013), and A Reading of Lao Zi for Educational Philosophers Today (2012). In addition, she published A Comparison of the Educational Ideas and Practices of John Dewey and Mao Zedong in China (1992) and various chapters and articles on teacher education, educational foundations, multicultural education, international education, and ESL education. She worked as an international consultant in teacher education and educational reforms in Central Asia and Africa for the World Bank in 2002 and 2001. She served on the Hawai’i Teacher Standard Board (2005–2008) and as the president of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) Hawai’i Chapter as well as Hawai’i state representative (2006–2008). She was a visiting scholar and research associate at the Philosophy of Educational Research Center at Harvard University (1999–2000), a visiting professor in Peking University (2015, 2011, 2009, and 1997) and in Renmin University (2012, 2014, and 2016), and an exchange professor at National Kaohsiung University in Taiwan (1998). She served as manuscript editor as well as editorial board member for Harvard Educational Review during 1988–1990. She was honored in Who’s Who among American Teachers in 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, and 2008.

Featured Panel Presentation (2018) | Educational Policy: Does the Democratisation of Education in Educational Systems Fuel Economic and Social Inequality?

Previous IICEHawaii Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Aloha as a Way of Being: Hawaiian Perspectives on Learning

Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s current research concentrates on post-war and contemporary politics and international affairs, and since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

A Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance, Dr Haldane is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), a Visiting Professor at the School of Business at Doshisha University (Japan), and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the College of Education of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (USA).

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

Curtis Ho
University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA

Biography

Curtis Ho is Professor, Department Chair and Graduate Chair of the Learning Design and Technology department at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He has been a UH faculty member for over 30 years, teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in educational media research, interactive multimedia, web-based instruction, distance education, video technology, and computer-based education. He has taught courses in American and Western Samoa and Saipan, and was the first to offer a course statewide over the Hawai’i Interactive Television System.

Curtis Ho received his PhD in Educational Technology from Arizona State University where he served as instructional designer. He has consulted for public and private schools, financial institutions, and higher education. For several years he directed the Office of Faculty Development and Academic Support for the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus. He has presented extensively at national and international conferences at locations including Beijing, Copenhagen, Eskisehir, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Lugano, Rome, Kumamoto, Kyoto, Melbourne, Montreal, Osaka, Panang, Taipei, Takamatsu, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver.

Professor Ho was a Principal Investigator, Co-Principal Investigator and Project Director for three US Department of Education grants totalling over 9.8 million US dollars. He is a co-organiser of TCC Worldwide Online Conference, an executive committee member of E-Learn, Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education, and is also past-President of the Pan Pacific Distance Learning Association, a chapter of the United States Distance Learning Association and of the Pacific Association for Communications and Technology, a chapter of the national Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Featured Panel Presentation (2019) | Independence & Interdependence

Previous IICEHawaii Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2017) | Educating for Change: Challenging and Preserving Traditional Cultures
Barbara Lockee
Virginia Tech, USA

Biography

Dr Lockee is Professor of Instructional Design and Technology at Virginia Tech, USA, where she is also Associate Director of the School of Education and Associate Director of Educational Research and Outreach. She teaches courses in instructional design, message design, and distance education. Her research interests focus on instructional design issues related to technology-mediated learning. She has published more than 80 papers in academic journals, conferences and books, and has presented her scholarly work at over 90 national and international conferences.

Dr Lockee is Immediate Past President of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, an international professional organisation for educational technology researchers and practitioners. She earned her PhD in 1996 from Virginia Tech in Curriculum and Instruction (Instructional Technology), M.A. in 1991 from Appalachian State University in Curriculum and Instruction (Educational Media), and BA in 1986 from Appalachian State University in Communication Arts.

James W. McNally
University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging

Biography

James W. McNally is the Director of the NACDA Program on Aging, a data archive containing over 1,500 studies related to health and the aging lifecourse. He currently does methodological research on the improvement and enhancement of secondary research data and has been cited as an expert authority on data imputation. Dr McNally has directed the NACDA Program on Aging since 1998 and has seen the archive significantly increase its holdings with a growing collection of seminal studies on the aging lifecourse, health, retirement and international aspects of aging. He has spent much of his career addressing methodological issues with a specific focus on specialized application of incomplete or deficient data and the enhancement of secondary data for research applications. James W. McNally has also worked extensively on issues related to international aging and changing perspectives on the role of family support in the later stages of the aging lifecourse.

Dr James W. McNally is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Social Sciences & Sustainability division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Cultural Resilience

Previous Presentations

Featured Presentation (2017) | Methodologies for the Collection of Comparative Community Level Public Health Data: Obtaining Powerful and Statistically Meaningful Findings for Small Populations
Alex Means
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USA

Biography

Alexander J. Means is Graduate Program Chair in the Department of Educational Foundations, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He is the author most recently of Learning to Save the Future: Rethinking Education and Work in the Era Digital Capitalism (Routledge, 2018); Educational Commons in Theory and Practice: Global Pedagogy and Politics (Palgrave, 2017); and The Wiley Handbook of Global Education Reform (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018). His research examines educational policy and organisation in relation to political, economic, cultural, technological, and social change.

Panel Presentation (2020) | Education, Work, and Sustainability in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Michael Menchaca
University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA

Biography

Michael Menchaca is chair of the Department of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He specializes in distance education, and has designed, implemented, and coordinated online and hybrid programs for over 20 years. He serves as editor for the IAFOR Journal of Education: Technologies and Education Special Edition. He was an IT specialist for many years in the public and private sector. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of online learning, technology integration, and social justice with technology.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Post-pandemic Online Education: Moving from Crisis Intervention to Optimal Experience
Sela V. Panapasa
University of Michigan, USA

Biography

Dr Sela V. Panapasa studies family support and intergenerational exchanges among aged Pacific Islanders living in the US and Pacific region. Her work examines changes in elderly living arrangements and headship status in response to demographic and socioeconomic change. Her interests include family demography, race and ethnicity, measuring health disparities and comparative studies.

Panel Presentation (2021) | Cultural Resilience

Previous Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2019) | Independence & Interdependence
Keynote Presentation (2018) | Anticipating Educational Needs That Ensure a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Workforce for a Changing U.S. Population
Hiagi M. Wesley
Brigham Young University – Hawaii, USA

Biography

Having been in the classroom at elementary school, junior and senior high school, and university levels, as well as an administrator at all levels, Dr Hiagi M. Wesley is passionate about student learning and academic success. He has a special interest in how different indigenous cultures affect the academic success of students.

His current responsibilities in leadership and teaching have been in the Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Studies programs at Brigham Young University – Hawaii, USA. He strives to apply effective pedagogy for student learning, in his role as Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Humanities, as he provides services in the area of curriculum development.

His educational background includes a Master’s degree and Supervisory Certificate in Secondary School Administration as well as a Doctorate of Education in Higher Education Administration. Other training includes an ESL certificate as well as Diversity and Sensitivity credentials.

Previous IICEHawaii Presentations

Featured Presentation (2018) | Pacific Indigenous Perspectives vs Global Ways of Learning