IAFOR > The IAFOR International Conference on Education in Hawaii > IICE2022 > Speakers

Speakers

The IAFOR International Conference on Education in Hawaii (IICE) is a multidisciplinary conference held concurrently with The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities in Hawaii (IICAH). Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. Registration for either of these conferences permits attendance in both.

This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

Plenary Speakers

  • Inkar Alshimbayeva
    Inkar Alshimbayeva
    Sony Corporation, Sweden
  • Brian Aycock
    Brian Aycock
    Chuo University, Japan & IAFOR Research Centre
  • Xu Di
    Xu Di
    University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • James W. McNally
    James W. McNally
    University of Michigan, USA & NACDA Program on Aging
  • Michael Menchaca
    Michael Menchaca
    University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
  • Deane Neubauer
    Deane Neubauer
    University of Hawai’i at Manoa, United States
  • Sela V. Panapasa
    Sela V. Panapasa
    University of Michigan, USA

Spotlight Speakers

  • Robin Brandehoff
    Robin Brandehoff
    University of Colorado Denver, United States

Previous Speakers

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

IICEHawaii2021 IICEHawaii2020 IICEHawaii2019
IICEHawaii2018 IICEHawaii2017 IICEHawaii2016
Inkar Alshimbayeva
Sony Corporation, Sweden

Biography

Inkar Alshimbayeva was a member of the IAFOR team for 3 years from 2018 to 2021. During these years she was responsible for handling all marketing communications related to promoting onsite IAFOR events. When the pandemic hit in early 2020, she was one of the IAFOR staff managing the transition of conventional onsite event operations to the online mode. Prior to joining IAFOR, she earned her Computer Science degree at University College London (UCL), UK. After completing her BSc, she was awarded a MEXT Scholarship (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan) to continue her education at Doshisha University in Kyoto, where she completed an MBA focused on Strategic Management and Marketing.

Currently, Inkar lives in Sweden and works at Sony Corporation where she is responsible for managing one of the online portals. In her free time, she enjoys studying Japanese and baking muffins.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Conference Responses: On-site, Online, and Uncertain Hybrid Futures
Brian Aycock
Chuo University, Japan & IAFOR Research Centre

Biography

Brian is an adjunct lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Chuo University, Japan, and a doctoral candidate at International Christian University (ICU), in Tokyo. In 2017, he earned his MA (Distinction) in Refugee Protection from the University of London. He is a Research Associate in the Refugee Law Initiative’s Internal Displacement Research Programme (University of London) and a Research Fellow at the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy. His current research lies at the intersection of environmental law, refugee law, and human rights law, as he investigates legal protections for persons displaced by climate change. He has spoken at conferences around the world, including Japan, India, the UK, and the US, among others, and has published articles on refugee law and internal displacement. In his youth, Brian served in the US military during multiple overseas operations, then joined the Peace Corps to work on economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. He later managed a refugee resettlement agency, assisting refugees as they arrived in the United States.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Conference Responses: On-site, Online, and Uncertain Hybrid Futures
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.

Previous IICEHawaii Presentations

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

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.

Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2021) | Cultural Resilience
Featured Presentation (2017) | Methodologies for the Collection of Comparative Community Level Public Health Data: Obtaining Powerful and Statistically Meaningful Findings for Small Populations
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.

Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2021) | Post-pandemic Online Education: Moving from Crisis Intervention to Optimal Experience
Deane Neubauer
University of Hawai’i at Manoa, United States

Biography

Deane E. Neubauer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He currently also serves as the Associate Director of the Asia Pacific Higher Education Research Partnership (APHERP) which conducts a wide range of policy-focused research with a special focus on higher education. He is also currently an adjunct senior fellow of the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Deane holds a BA from the University of California, Riverside, and MA and PhD degrees from Yale University. Over the course of his career he has focused on a variety of political and policy areas including democratic theory, public policy, elections and various policy foci, including education, health, agriculture and communication. He has held a wide variety of administrative positions at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and the 10 campus University of Hawaii system. He also has over twenty years of experience in U.S.-oriented quality assurance.

Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2020) | Education, Work, and Sustainability in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Featured Panel Presentation (2019) | Featured Panel in Association with APHERP
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.

Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2021) | Cultural Resilience
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
Robin Brandehoff
University of Colorado Denver, United States

Biography

Robin Brandehoff is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at University of Colorado Denver. Hailing from Hawai'i and East L.A., Robin is a first-generation high school and college graduate emphasizing the importance of individualised advising and mentorship for all students—particularly first-generation Students of Color. In her role as Co-Leader of the national Grow Your Own Collective, she has worked and presented with various GYO programs and leaders from around the country to create a sustainable model for recruiting and retaining diverse, community-grounded Teachers of Color. She is also Co-President of the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., an organisation which supports individuals and groups whose work challenges oppressive systems by promoting critical thinking and social justice through liberatory theatre and popular education in marginalised communities. As an educator and theatre practitioner, her work and research examines the oppressions and traumas of marginalised Communities of Color through liberatory mentorship, performance, and counter-stories to support and educate gang-affiliated youth and the educational leaders and mentors that work with them.

Spotlight Presentation

Building Cultural Wealth Through Natural Mentorships: Five Latinx Gang-Affiliated Youth Share Their Stories of Resilience

This presentation explores the tensions and conflicting perspectives of 20 community leaders, five youth mentees, and three mentors living in a predominantly Latinx and conservative rural California town. Their testimonies describe the sociopolitical changes they have witnessed since the 2016 election including local reactions to national ICE raids, deportation threats, drops in school and community event attendance, and looming “Make California Great Again” billboards now edging the corners of fields where many undocumented farmworkers live and labor. As an act of resilience (Yosso, 2005), five youth discuss their stories of cultivating informal mentorships with older members of their family or individuals filling a familial role. These relationships encouraged mentees to openly challenge issues of racism, colorism, and poverty, and their correlations with a lack of basic youth resources in their town. By purposefully situating this study in a rural area, I aimed to challenge the dominant narrative around formal mentoring programs and their recorded impact to show that informal and naturally-occurring mentorships (Timpe & Lunkenheimer, 2015) cultivated by youth are also impactful. These relationships possess a unique potential to educate and guide teachers and administrators to work alongside their community members and embrace forms of cultural wealth which benefit their students. The objective of this presentation is to collaboratively explore additional ways we, as IAFOR members and educators, can continue to encourage and nurture informal mentorships as acts of resilience and social justice in order to embrace community and extend the limits of our formal schooling potential.

https://submit.iafor.org/submission/submission60852

A message from the IAFOR Board of Directors on the impact of COVID-19 on our activities.