Bert J. Tuga is the 11th President of the Philippine Normal University (PNU), the National Center for Teacher Education in the Philippines. He has held significant roles, including Vice President for Finance and Administration and Vice President for University Relations and Advancement. He earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from PNU and participated in a PhD Sandwich Program at the Ohio State University. He has also completed an online Certificate Program on Leadership and Management offered by Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Through his leadership, Tuga successfully brought the Global Citizenship Education (GCED) Cooperating Centre to the Philippines, establishing PNU as its national base in partnership with UNESCO-APCEIU. As a committed GCED advocate, he continues to serve as consultant and resource person for various GCED-related projects in both national and international settings.

Charu Saini is a passionate education professional with a Ph.D. in Education and double post-graduation in Education and Mathematics.
She has extensive experience in educational research, curriculum development, and policy implementation. Before joining UNESCO MGIEP, she served as a Senior Consultant at NCERT-India, where she contributed to development of national curriculum framework and policy initiatives, including teacher capacity building, and stakeholder engagement.
At UNESCO MGIEP, she is presently leading a research initiative focused on the development and validation of a comprehensive framework for ‘Digital Citizenship Education’ within the context of teacher education. Her work demonstrates a deep and sustained commitment to advancing the principles of global citizenship education, with particular emphasis on the integration of equity, critical thinking, and digital pedagogies that cultivate inclusive, informed, and empathetic learners. She is particularly committed to designing research that informs policy and strengthens inclusive, future-ready education systems.

Cheryl Woelk is co-founder of Collective Joy Consulting, offering intercultural communication and conflict resolution training to individuals and organizations in Northeast Asia. Based in Seoul, South Korea, she has worked as an English language instructor and peace educator in diverse multicultural educational settings in Northeast Asia and North America, including as a facilitator with the Northeast Regional Peacebuilding Institute (NARPI). She holds a BA in English, a certificate in TESOL, an MA in Education, a Graduate Certificate in Conflict Transformation, and is currently a doctoral student in the Global Education Cooperation Program at Seoul National University. Her areas of interest in research and practice are integrating language learning and peace education in training for teachers, consulting for peace education training institutes and providing coaching in global communication skills for professionals in South Korea who use English in international contexts.

CHO Hye Seung is an Associate Research Fellow at the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI), where she leads research on gender and education policy. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and International Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. Her doctoral work examined Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in South Korea, focusing on its rationales and equity implications. Since then, she has conducted a wide range of studies on gender and education, including textbook analysis, policy evaluation, and teacher training. She currently leads a national teacher training program on gender-responsive education and previously developed similar programs for education officials in Nepal. Her work spans both academic research and policy implementation in the fields of gender, education, and international development.

CHOI Mee Young is the Chief of Education at UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia, including the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Mongolia, People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea. She has been leading and is the owner of various education programmes such as Education for Sustainable Development, Climate Change Education, Gender Equality Education, Teachers Policy and Training, Education in Emergencies, etc. over the two decades in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific. In particular, she has considerable experience in elevating Education to the top of Policy Agenda, most recently, to accelerate Transforming Education to achieve the Education 2030 Goals in the region.

Clement Emenike Adibe is a professor of Political Science at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, USA. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in 1995, specializing in International Relations and Comparative Politics. Before joining the faculty of DePaul University in 1996, he was the Killam Post-Doctoral Fellow at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where he was also an Assistant Professor of Political Science and co-ordinator of the Weekly Research Seminar series from 1995-1996. In that capacity, he was responsible for inviting and scheduling academics and practitioners in the field of international cooperation to discuss issues related to global cooperation and international peace and security. Between 1992-1994, he was an International Institutions Fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, where his research focus and scholarship examined the role of international organizations, especially the United Nations and Regional Organizations, such as the African Union, ASEAN, ECOWAS, in fostering global education for peace and international security. In 1995, he served as a researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva, Switzerland. In that capacity, his work focused on peace processes to ameliorate and resolve conflicts in West and East Africa.
He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) from 1997-2000; and as a member of the Executive Board of ACUNS (1999). His major accomplishment during his tenure on the ACUNS board was advocating the spread of the educational mission of the United Nations to the less disadvantaged corners of our world. The result was the first ACUNS summer workshop to be held in Africa, in Namibia, in the early 2000s. He also had the privilege of participating in many conferences and colloquia on global education for peace and development at the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo under the auspices of Dr. Obi Aginam-led Global Peace and Sustainability initiatives at UNU from 2009-2014. At DePaul University, he has been a part of the Global Learning Engagement (GLE) initiative that leverages learning technologies to facilitate teaching and learning about global peace and sustainable development across continents. Some of his publications include Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Somalia (1995); “The Liberian Conflict and the ECOWAS-UN Partnership” (1998); “Do Regional Organizations Matter?” (2003); “Accountability in Africa and the International Community” (2010); “From Benign Neglect to Strategic Engagement: The Challenges of Transforming America’s African Policy in the Age of Obama” (2014); “Trump and Merkel are Proof that Fear Drives Politics,” Fortune Magazine, December 19, 2015; and “Reimagining Africa: A Continent in Transition and Its Implications for World Order,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2022.

Daniel Schugurensky is a professor at Arizona State University, Director of the Participatory Governance Initiative, the chair of Graduate Program of Social and Cultural Pedagogy, and coordinator of Graduate Certificate in Social Transformation. Before joining ASU, he worked at the University of Toronto, the University of California and the University of Alberta. He lived and worked in several countries and was a visiting professor at universities in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan, France, Malta, Mexico, Spain and the United States.
He has published widely on citizenship education, adult education, social pedagogy, higher education, democratic innovations, cooperatives and community economic development, among other topics. His recent books include Educating for Democracy: The Case for Participatory Budgeting in Schools (Elgar, 2024), Global Citizenship Education and Teacher Education: International perspectives and practices (Routledge, 2020), By the People: Participatory Democracy, Civic Engagement and Citizenship Education (PGI, 2017), and Paulo Freire (Bloomsbury, 2015).

David Akwara is a Global African Storyteller and award-winning filmmaker recognized for his impactful work blending creativity, culture, and social change. His films explore themes such as economic development, cultural preservation, and education, often highlighting underrepresented narratives.
His acclaimed documentary series, THE RISE (A Journey to Africa’s Financial Independence), examines the transformative potential of the African Single Market under the AfCFTA agreement. Beyond filmmaking, he contributes to global discourse as a panellist, offering insights on the economy, education, arts & culture, and youth inclusion.
He has spoken at major international forums, including the 2023 UN ECOSOC Youth Forum in New York, the UN Human Rights Africa Regional Seminar, the inaugural AfCFTA Youth Symposium, APRM 3rd Youth Symposium, and summits such as the African Change-makers Leadership Summit, Women Lead Forum across Africa, the Envision Democracy Summit in Zambia, the 2024 African Philanthropy Assembly, and UNESCO’s TAGe dialogue series.

Diya Banerjee is the Team Lead for Social Media at the World Health Organization (WHO), where she shapes the organization’s digital voice on global health. With over two decades of experience across journalism, multilateral organizations, and policy communications, she brings a distinctive blend of storytelling and strategic digital advocacy to the public health space. Before joining WHO, she led high-impact campaigns at the ILO and UNDP, following a journalism career covering a wide range of socio-political issues. She has also worked with environmental think tanks and produced an award-winning documentary on medical clowning. She holds master’s degrees from UCL and Jamia Millia Islamia and is a Charles Wallace Fellow and Goethe Arts Management grantee. She currently lives in Geneva with her rescue dog, Mila.

Dylan Wray is Director of ThinkShow and a pioneering education leader with over 28 years of experience. He led global learning at the Human Responsibility Accelerator designing impactful citizenship education and recently launched the School AI Navigator programme to support ethical AI use in schools. Dylan has developed educator training and resources in media and information literacy, including the MAIIL Framework of Possibility, which offers a vital approach to integrating AI literacy into MIL. As Executive Director of Shikaya, he led South Africa’s Facing History and Ourselves programme and reached over 15,000 educators globally. He also facilitated Global Citizenship Education for UNESCO APCEIU across Colombia, the UK, USA, Kenya, Northern Ireland, and Korea. He is the author of A School Where I Belong, and has created resources for Netflix’s Daughters of Destiny, UNESCO’s The Present is Ours, and other tools that empower young people to become active, ethical participants in society.

Edward Vickers holds the UNESCO Chair in Education for Peace, Social Justice and Global Citizenship at Kyushu University, Japan, and is currently President of the Comparative Education Society of Asia. He researches the history and politics of education in contemporary Asia, especially in Chinese societies (the PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan). He also researches the politics of conflict-related heritage in Asia. His books include Education and Society in Post-Mao China (2017; with Zeng Xiaodong), Constructing Modern Asian Citizenship (2015; with Krishna Kumar), and Remembering Asia's World War Two (2019; with Mark Frost and Daniel Schumacher). He also co-authored the 2017 UNESCO report Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century: the State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Asia. He is currently working with Mark Frost and Hasini Haputhanthri on an edited volume provisionally entitled Violent Heritage in Modern Sri Lanka: Past Conflict as Public HIstory.

Faryal Khan is the Programme Specialist leading Transformative Education at UNESCO’s Regional Office in Bangkok, with over 25 years of experience advising education systems in more than 30 countries. She holds a doctorate in Educational Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard University, along with master’s degrees from Harvard and the University of the Punjab, Pakistan. Her expertise spans education policy and sector analysis, educational planning, decentralization, and financing, with a strong focus on peacebuilding, global citizenship, and sustainable development. Known for her analytical depth and evidence-based, participatory approach, she has contributed to education reforms across the Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Arab States, and previously worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Francis L. Collins is Professor of Sociology at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland, having previously held positions in Geography and Population Studies at National University of Singapore and University of Waikato. He undertakes interdisciplinary social science research on migration governance; racism and workplace exploitation; international student mobilities; and the relationship between migration and cities. Questions of global citizenship and education are central in these research foci and Francis has undertaken empirical work in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and South Korea. He is the co-author of Edges of Empire: The Politics of Immigration in Aotearoa New Zealand (Auckland University Press 2025) and author of Global Asian City: Migration, Desire and the Politics of Encounter in 21st Century Seoul (Wiley 2018). Co-edited volumes include Intersections of Inequality, Migration and Diversification (Palgrave 2020), Aspiration, Desire and the Drivers of Migration (Routledge 2020) and Handbook of Transnationalism (Edward Elgar 2022).

Fujiwara Takaaki is Professor Emeritus at Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts and is the former president of the Japan Society for International Education. His research themes include: citizenship education, global education, international education, social studies education. His major publications include: Fujiwara Takaaki (2016), A Study on the Curriculum of Global Education, Kazama Shobo; Kojima Susumu and Fujiwara Takaaki (eds.) (2017) , Challenges to Overseas Experiential Learning at Universities, Nakanishiya Shoten; A. Osler and H. Starkey (translated by Fujiwara Takaaki and Kitayama Yuka) (2018) ,Teachers and Human Rights Education, Akashi Shoten; Tanaka Haruhiko, Nasu Masahiro and Fujiwara Takaaki (eds.) (2019) ,Creating an SDGs Curriculum, Gakubunsha; Japan Society for International Education (eds.) (2021), Rethinking International Education, Akashi Shoten; and Fujiwara Takaaki (2021), New Edition The Hyotan-jima Issues: A Study Issue for Japan's Multicultural Society, Akashi Shoten.

Han Geon Soo is a UNESCO Chair (GCED and Cultural Diversity) and a professor of the Dept. of Cultural Anthropology, Kangwon National University, Republic of Korea. He studied anthropology at Seoul National University (B.A) and University of California at Berkeley (MA, Ph.D). He is the chairperson of the Governing Board of UNESCO APCEIU, member of the Executive Board of Korean National Commission for UNESCO, and the chairperson of the Advisory Committee of Korean Creative Cities of UCCN. He was the first chairperson of Committee of Cultural Diversity of Korean government. He served as the president of several professional academic societies including Korea International Migration Studies Association, Korean Family Studies Association, Korean Society of Education for International Understanding. He is also a member of the Policy Advisory Committee of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has advised UNESCO category II institutions including ICHICAP, ICM, APCEIU in Korea. His main research topics are African studies, multicultural society, international migration, cultural diversity, cultural heritage, and global citizenship education. Recently he published many articles on cultural diversity, global citizenship education, 2023 Recommendation on education for peace, human rights and sustainable development, UNESCO creative cities, migration and intangible cultural heritage.

HAN Soong Hee is a professor of education and lifelong learning in the Department of Education at Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. His academic works have focused mainly on the studies on popular education and critical adult education, learning society and learning ecosystem, and global and comparative studies in citizenship education. His recent research topics are about the institutionalization of lifelong learning systems on a global scale, especially from a post-humanist perspective. He was president of the Korean Society for the Study of Lifelong Education and Editor-in-Chief of Asia Pacific Education Review. He is also serving various international journals as editorial advisory members.

Hugo Fernandes is Executive Director of Centro Nacional Chega! I.P. From 2008-2017, he was Director of Public Policy and Institutional Strengthening and Team Leader of Support for Good Public Policy (SGPP) Program at the Asia Foundation in Timor-Leste. From 2002-2005, he was Coordinator for Truth Seeking Unit and Co-Managing editor for Timor-Leste's Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) final report Chega! - Enough. From 2005- 2008, he was the Research Team Leader and Co-Editor for Timor-Leste and Indonesia Truth and Friendship Commission (CTF)'s final report, Pre Memoriam ad Spem (From Memory to Hopes). He is a co-founder of South East Asian Journalists Union (SEAJU) and former co-chair of the SEAJU for the period of 2013-2017. He is a founding member of Timor Lorosa'e Journalists Association (TLJA) in 1999. He was former Commissioner of Timor-Leste-Press Council for the period of 2016-2021. In 2020, He was a co-founder of KDAI, Kdadalak Institute for Public Policy. In 2025, he was nominated by members of Timor-Leste's Memory of the World (MoW) as Chairperson for the period of 2025-2028. He holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Forestry from Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta, Indonesia (1997), a diploma in International Journalism, and a Master Degree in Public Policy, from Cardiff University, Wales, UK. (2002)

Jack Webster is a consultant on digital citizenship education for UNESCO Section of Global Citizenship and Peace Education.
He is a Professional Teaching Fellow and Education Researcher at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Arts and Education. His interests lie in the complex relational space between humans and digital technologies and the ways teachers engage with this relational space.
His current research explores digital citizenship in schools, in particular teachers’ perceptions of digital citizenship education and the narratives influencing their perceptions. This research is interdisciplinary and looks to identify ways to support the delivery of digital citizenship education across the curriculum.

Jasmine B.-Y. Sim is Head of the Policy, Curriculum and Leadership Department at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She holds a PhD from the University of Sydney, a Master of Education from Harvard University, and a BA (Honours) from Victoria University of Wellington. An established scholar in civics and citizenship education, her work also engages with educational leadership and curriculum thinking. Her research examines how citizenship is taught, learned, and lived, increasingly through comparative perspectives. She has received several competitive research grants from both Singaporean and international agencies to investigate civic and citizenship education. A widely respected academic, she was awarded the World Cultural Council Special Recognition Award in 2013 and the Cambridge Journal of Education Best Paper Award. She has delivered keynote addresses at major international conferences and served as Regional Editor for Citizenship Teaching and Learning. She also sits on the editorial boards of several leading education journals and book series.

Jefferson R. Plantilla works as a Researcher at the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center (HURIGHTS OSAKA). He leads multi-country research projects on human rights and social development, culture, education, law and business; prepares the directory of human rights centers in Asia-Pacific; edits English publications (FOCUS Asia-Pacific newsletter, Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific and other publications), participates as resource person in workshops and conferences in Asia on human rights/human rights education. He has been invited as resource person in the APCEIU training program (specifically the Asia-Pacific Training Workshop on EIU/GCED), facilitator of the online course Human Rights in the Context of GCED, and as mentor in the GCED project for APCEIU alumni. For further information on the regional program of HURIGHTS OSAKA, visit www.hurights.or.jp/english/

Joseph Kahne is the Dutton Presidential Professor for Education Policy and Politics and Co-Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside. Currently, he is studying the impact of Connecting Classrooms to Congress (CCTC) initiative as well as evaluating a yearlong social studies curriculum in four states (Louisiana, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Oklahoma), tied to the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap. Together with John Rogers of UCLA, he is also examining ways current political pressures on school districts impact efforts to educate towards a diverse democracy. He is a member of the National Academy of Education. He was Chair of the MacArthur Foundation’s Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network and was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. He can be reached at jkahne@ucr.edu and his work is available at http://www.civicsurvey.org/

KANG Jeong Han received a Ph.D. in sociology from University of Chicago, and currently is Professor of Sociology at Yonsei University, Seoul. His recent research interests focus on computational social science and the relationship between digital transformation and social good. He is also leading YODA Lab (Yonsei Online Data Analysis Lab) whose motto is “to contribute to social innovations with little harm to society.” His studies have been published in Social Policy & Administration, Journal of Informetrics, Journal of Mathematical Sociology, Sociological Methods & Research, and Administrative Science Quarterly.

Karena Menzie-Ballantyne is a Senior Lecturer and teacher-educator based at CQUniversity Australia’s Bundaberg campus. She has over two decades experience specialising in practically-oriented, evidence-based research into education for global citizenship/global competence and sustainable development in school, tertiary and not-for-profit sectors. She co-leads the Empower: Global Education for Sustainable Futures research cluster which includes academics, PhD and Masters students from Australia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia with the aim of amplifying the voice and research of the Asia Pacific region. Her recent research includes the Asia-Pacific Road Map to implementing UNESCO’s Recommendation on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development; the ACER-APCIEU Global Citizenship Education Monitoring Toolkit; an international Delphi study with the University of Hull into how teacher-educators contextualise global education; and the Queensland Department of Education on their Global Competence Framework.

Karel Fracapane works for the Education Sector of UNESCO as team leader for activities relating to racism and antisemitism, hate speech and dealing with violent pasts, in the context of UNESCO’s work on global citizenship education and education for peace. Before that, he served as a policy officer at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Head of the Department of International Relations of the Shoah Memorial in Paris, coordinating activities pertaining to genocide studies and education in several regions of the world. He was also the first Executive Secretary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

Kelechi Kalu earned a Ph.D. (1997) in International Studies from the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. He is currently a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside. He was the Founding Vice Provost (2015-2020) of International Affairs at UC Riverside. From 2008-2015, he was a Professor of African Politics, Director of the Center for African Studies, and Associate Provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs at the Ohio State University (OSU). While at OSU, Kalu was a Faculty Affiliate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. From 2011-2012, he was a Korea Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Graduate School of International Studies and the Institute for Development and Human Security at Ewha Womans University, South Korea. He was a Mellon Research Fellow (1994-1995) in Government at Connecticut College, and a Ford Foundation and State Department grants recipient. He was also previously a Professor of Political Science at the University of Northern Colorado. His research and teaching interests are in International Politics, African Political Economy, and U.S.-Africa Relations. His recent book-length publications include Foreign Aid and Development in South Korea and Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Economic Growth (Abingdon, Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2022a), and the following edited volumes: Peacebuilding in Africa: The Post-Conflict State and Its Multidimensional Crises (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2021a); Democratization and Military Coups in Africa: Post-1990 Political Conflicts (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2021b); Civil Wars in Africa (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2022b); and, Insurgency, Terrorism, and Counterterrorism in Africa (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2023).

Kevin Kester is Associate Professor of Comparative International Education and Peace/Development Studies, and Director of the Education, Conflict and Peace Lab, at Seoul National University. His research interests lie in the sociology and politics of education with a focus on the intersectional fields of comparative education, education and conflict, peace education, and global citizenship education. His most recent books include The United Nations and Higher Education: Peacebuilding, Social Justice and Global Cooperation for the 21st Century (Emerald Publishing, 2020), Revisiting ‘Asia as Method’ in Education Research (Springer, 2023) and Common Curriculum Guide for Peace Education in Northeast Asia (APCEIU, 2023, co-edited with Jeongmin Eom and Sicong Chen). He is recipient of the 2024 Noam Chomsky Shining Star Research Award and the 2022 Unju Prize for Research Excellence.

KIM Hong Soek (Scott) is co-founder and CEO of Collective Joy Consulting. As a mediator, organizational consultant, and conflict coach, he has gained rich expertise through his experience with international development agencies in South Korea, a co-operative research institute in Canada, and a community mediation center in the US. Currently, he practices business consulting and conflict coaching at Collective Joy, which is a peacebuilding agency focused on building communication and conflict resolution capacity at organizational and community levels in South Korea and Northeast Asia. He received his Bachelor of Law from Soong Sil University in Seoul and his Masters in Conflict Transformation concentrating on Organizational Leadership at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. He also has certifications in professional mediation, trauma healing (STAR), anti-racism / diversity training, sociocracy and adaptive leadership.

Lea L. Espallardo is a Filipino theater artist, educator, and advocate with over three decades of experience in using the arts for education and social change. As a senior artist-teacher with the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), she has led numerous arts-based advocacy initiatives across Southeast Asia and the Greater Mekong Subregion, focusing on issues such as gender equality, HIV/AIDS awareness, child protection, and feminist pedagogy. A trailblazer in creative education, she has facilitated cross-cultural workshops, authored advocacy manuals, and collaborated with global institutions including UNESCO and APCEIU to conduct teacher training programs and curriculum integration work on Global Citizenship Education (GCED). Her work bridges performance and pedagogy—engaging diverse audiences, fostering transformative dialogue, participation, and community empowerment. As a speaker, trainer, and artist, she brings a unique and insightful voice to conversations on the transformative power of the arts in education and social change.

Li-Ching Ho is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research, conducted primarily in East and Southeast Asia, focuses on global civic education, issues of diversity in social studies education, and climate change education. In particular, her work has been centered on how concepts such as justice, harmony, meritocracy, climate change, democratic deliberation, and civility and incivility are addressed and enacted in different national education systems. She is a co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Global Citizenship and Education (2018) and her latest book, co-authored with Keith Barton, is Curriculum for Justice and Harmony (2022). She has also been deeply involved as a research collaborator, invited speaker, and workshop facilitator with scholars, teachers, and students in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines.

LIM Hyun Mook is the director of UNESCO APCEIU.

Makhrus Ali is an educator based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He currently works as a language trainer at Pondok Pesantren Nurul Huda (Nurul Huda Islamic Boarding School) and Interlingua Language School. His recent project, supported by UNESCO APCEIU, focuses on developing a practical playbook to help Islamic boarding schools prevent bullying through values-based education and inclusive school culture. The playbook offers guidance for teachers in pesantren to promote peacebuilding through social-emotional learning (SEL), prevent bullying, and respond to incidents effectively. It is designed to support educators in creating safer, more respectful learning environments by building students’ empathy, emotional regulation, and conflict resolution skills.

Miki Sugimura is President of Sophia University in Japan and a Professor of Comparative and International Education in the Faculty of Human Sciences. She also serves as the UNESCO Chair on Education for Human Dignity, Peace and Sustainability. She earned her M.Ed. and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. She is a Visiting Professor at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), a Research Fellow at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Vice Chair of the Promotion of Sustainability in Postgraduate Education and Research Network in the Asia-Pacific (ProSPER.Net), and a member of the Executive Board of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES).In 2022, she was appointed to UNESCO’s International Expert Group for the revision of the 1974 Recommendation. She is a member of the Advisory Group on the Action Research Project on Transforming futures: Enhancing practice for ESD for 2030.

Nausheen Adnan is the Parliamentary Secretary for School Education in Punjab and a member of the Chief Minister’s Advisory Committee on Education. With over 25 years of international experience in the education sector across the Middle East and the UK, she brings a global perspective to education reform in Pakistan. As part of the government’s core team, she plays a key role in policy development and implementation across the province such as early childhood education, foundational literacy and numeracy & inclusive education.
Her current focus includes comprehensive curriculum reform to foster global citizenship, critical thinking, inclusion, and digital readiness, while aligning education initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals—particularly SDG 4 (Quality Education). Passionate about student-centered learning and public sector innovation, she is committed to ensuring equitable access to quality education for all children in Punjab.

Nicole Fournier-Sylvester is a Senior Research Advisor at the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence which leads the Government of Canada's efforts to prevent and counter radicalization. She leads the organization’s work in early/upstream prevention and countering youth radicalization through multi-sectoral partnerships, education and capacity building. With over 20 years of experience in education, she has worked as a teacher, researcher, and program manager for Canadian and international organizations including the Global Centre for Pluralism, UNESCO, and Project Someone. She has a Ph.D. in Education and a record of publications, presentations, and professional development workshops on global citizenship education, dialogue, critical thinking, futures literacy and building resilience to hate. She is currently a Board Member at Harmony Movement, a non-profit that promotes equity, diversity, and inclusion by educating and empowering youth to become leaders for social change.

Niry Ratsarazaka (Madagascar) serves as Associate Programme Specialist in the Education Section of UNESCO’s Regional Office for Southern Africa, based in Harare, Zimbabwe. Before joining the Regional Office, she worked at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, where she contributed to capacity-building initiatives in the fields of higher education and foresight, and the use of emerging technologies for development with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. She also supported strategic planning and coordination efforts within the Education Sector, strengthening diplomatic and institutional partnership with Member States, including matters related to the General History of Africa.
Prior to joining UNESCO, she worked for a Malawian Welsh NGO on an education for health and well-being programme in Malawi. She holds a master’s degree in International Development and African Studies from the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po Paris, France.

Nominmaa Ulziibat is a social entrepreneur and passionate global activist dedicated to bridging the skills gap between privileged and underprivileged youth through transformative Global Citizenship Education (GCED). Since 2019, her work has reached over 80,000 young people, delivering innovative programmes in media literacy and personal development to prepare them for the demands of Society 5.0. Her efforts have earned national and international recognition. As an UNLEASH Talent, she presented a scalable solution for equipping African youth with essential GCED skills to high-level stakeholders and global partners. She continues to champion inclusive, future-ready education that enables young people to secure meaningful work and become active, responsible global citizens.

Obijiofor Aginam is a scholar, practitioner, and international policy expert who has dedicated his career to advancing peace, sustainability, and global health governance. As the Director of UNESCO's MGIEP, he leads global initiatives promoting educational innovation and sustainable development, with a special focus on Global South.
His academic career includes a tenured professorship of law and legal studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, and Global Security and Cooperation Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) of New York. A respected voice in global health diplomacy and governance, he played a key role in revising WHO’s International Health Regulations. His distinguished career includes senior positions within the United Nations system, serving at the United Nations University in Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur.

Rachel Parker is the Founder and Principal of Global Play Lab, a collective of like-minded leaders passionate about building systems to support children to thrive. Global Play Lab aims to bridge research and practice and elevate the ‘global’ aspect of play by sharing evidence about transformative playful learning that improves our relationships with each other and the environment. Global Play Lab is currently working with UNESCO, APCEIU and Gowrie Victoria on research about global citizenship monitoring, education for sustainable development, and Museum Victoria’s Playbound Festival 2025. She is also Voice of the Child Foundations Lead at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She led major studies for ACER for over a decade and has 25 years’ experience in educational research and international development and has worked in 15 countries.

PARK Hwan Bo is a professor in the Department of Education and the director of the Center for Global Citizenship Education at Chungnam National University. He received his PhD in sociology of education from the Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. His research interests relate to educational policy evaluation with comparative and international perspectives, and he is currently conducting various research projects to monitor the implementation of GCED and evaluate the impact of GCED on students. For over 15 years, he has engaged in educational development cooperation projects and research for developing countries and also provided his expertise as an international consultant. Prior to his current position, he worked as an associate research fellow for the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI), one of the government-funded research institutes.

Park Bumchul has been teaching history for 20 years in a male private high school in Seoul, Korea. He connects a school that is a space for students' life and a space for knowledge through global citizen education linked with the community. In particular, the area where his school is located has many places related to the Korean War. There is a refugee community that has settled in Korea to escape the Ethiopian civil war. He is helping young people lead activities that change memories of war-related areas into peace spaces. Through these social participation activities, he ultimately tries to practice world peace.

Priyankar Upadhyaya, a prominent Indian scholar in Peace Studies, has held the UNESCO Chair for Peace and Intercultural Understanding at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) since 2010. As founding director of BHU’s Malaviya Centre for Peace Research, he has promoted peace studies across the country. His awards include the Woodrow Wilson Centre’s Residence Scholar Award, Canadian Faculty Research Award, Senior Fulbright Fellowship, and a Global Fellowship at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. In 2019, Jawaharlal Nehru University nominated him for the Rajiv Gandhi Chair for Peace, and that same year, he was invited by the UN General Assembly President as a panellist to mark the 20th anniversary of the UN Declaration on a Culture of Peace. Recently, the Swedish Research Council selected him for the esteemed 2027 Olof Palme Visiting Professorship. His notable publications, including "Peace and Conflict: The South Asian Experience" (Cambridge: 2015) and "The Long Walk of Peace" (UNESCO, 2018), have significantly contributed to peace and conflict scholarship.

Rilli Lappalainen is founder and CEO of Bridge 47 network, which is a global network of CSOs, researchers and policy makers to promote the implementation of SDG 4.7. The mission is to work towards a fairer and more sustainable world through active citizenship, including Global Citizenship Education and other value-based educations. Bridge 47 advocates for the recognition of non-formal and informal education equally important like formal education, as well as lifelong learning. Bridge 47 believes that education itself needs to be transformed, and emphasizes the essential role of education in transforming societies towards a more sustainable future. He is currently also President of CONCORD, European Confederation of Development NGOs which challenges the European Union to be a responsible global actor. His background is a combination of more than a 30 years long career from local to global level to fight for global solidarity and sustainable development in Finland, Europe and global organisations.

Ruairí McKiernan is an Irish civic leader, award-winning social innovator, psychotherapist, and bestselling author with over 20 years’ experience in education, advocacy, and civil society development. A Fulbright Scholar and former Presidential appointee to Ireland’s Council of State, he is CEO of the Irish Development Education Association (IDEA), one of Europe’s leading networks for Global Citizenship Education, representing over 70 organisations working for peace, justice, and sustainability. He is also the founder and former CEO of SpunOut.ie, one of Ireland’s largest youth organisations, and has worked extensively with grassroots movements across Ireland and internationally. He is the host of the Love and Courage podcast, a regular media contributor, and an international speaker. He brings a unique blend of lived experience and strategic insight. Originally from Ireland’s border region, he is passionate about the role of Global Citizenship Education in advancing peacebuilding, democracy, and global solidarity.

Salma Noorfitria Ningrum is the Co-founder and Vice President of MIL Lab Indonesia, a youth-led initiative that promotes Media and Information Literacy (MIL) to rebuild digital trust and foster civic engagement among Indonesian youth through creative approaches. She leads community-based programs that translate Global Citizenship Education (GCED) into practical tools for critical thinking, empathy, and ethical digital participation. She is the global champion of the UNESCO Youth Hackathon 2024, a grantee of the UNESCO Global Youth Grant Scheme 2025, and a current fully funded awardee of the Temasek Foundation–NUS LEaRN Programme in Singapore. With a background in Public Administration, she has represented youth voices in various international forums on education, youth leadership, and digital citizenship. Her work reflects a strong commitment to empowering young people as responsible, ethical, and informed actors in today’s complex digital landscape.

Samsoo Sa-U is an Assistant Professor at Prince of Songkla University (PSU), Pattani Campus, specializing in Islamic Educational Administration and Multicultural Education. His work bridges Islamic values with global competencies by developing inclusive pedagogical tools such as the HIKMAH, FITRAH and TARUF models to promote peaceful coexistence, civic engagement, and ethical leadership. He actively applies the Community of Philosophical Inquiry to cultivate critical thinking and counter Islamophobia through dialogue and reflective learning. He also leads the Inclusive City initiative in southern Thailand, empowering youth through digital citizenship, empathy, and intercultural collaboration. Currently, he is conducting research on fostering Muslim global citizenship in Islamic private schools and has been invited to lead workshops promoting GCE among educators and school leaders in Thailand’s southernmost provinces. His contributions aim to nurture socially responsible Muslim citizens rooted in faith and committed to justice in a pluralistic world.

Stefania Giannini was appointed UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education in 2018, becoming the top UN official in the field. She provides strategic vision and leadership in coordinating and monitoring the Education 2030 Agenda, encompassed in Sustainable Development Goal 4.
During her term, she has given fresh impetus to multilateral and bilateral partnerships; increased focus on education’s ethical role in providing learners with the skills to respond to 21st century challenges and on the responsibility of universities in achieving the SDGs. She affirmed UNESCO’s leadership in the COVID-19 response through global evidence, guidance, policy dialogue and collaboration with all partners, including through the Global Education Summit convened by the UN Secretary-General, which propelled education to the top of the political agenda.
With a background in the Humanities, Ms Giannini has served as Rector of the University for Foreigners of Perugia (2004 – 2012); Senator of the Republic of Italy (2013 – 2018) and Minister of Education, Universities and Research (2014 – 2016).

Tanya Wendt Samu is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Education of Waipapa Taumata Rau at The University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. She has three decades of experience in teacher education, social studies and social sciences curriculum development and research. An area of expertise is Pacific/Pasifika education. She recently became involved in an APCIEU project involving a process that purposefully focused on “...context as the site where global citizenship education finds meaning, becoming a living education in local realities” (APCEIU, 2024). This process privileged the perspectives and knowledges of diverse cultures and philosophical traditions including indigenous. She sought to develop a framework informed by Pacific ways of knowing, being, and doing within which to locate and connect global education and learning contextualised for the realities of a sub-region covering one-third of the planet’s surface: the Pacific / Oceania / the Moana / the Blue Continent.

W. Andy Knight is a Distinguished University Professor and Provost Fellow for Black Excellence & Leadership at the University of Alberta. An internationally respected scholar of global governance, peace and security, and human rights, he has authored or edited 16 books and held the prestigious Fulbright Distinguished Chair in International and Area Studies at Yale University. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he served as Director of the Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies, where he co-founded the Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean. His advisory roles have included work with the United Nations, UNU, IDRC, the World Economic Forum, and governments in the Global South. He is also the host of Blacktalk, a podcast promoting anti-racist and inclusive global dialogue. Born in Barbados and educated in Canada, he exemplifies a lifelong commitment to equity, education, and international collaboration—principles at the heart of Global Citizenship Education.

Chen Yoke Pin is dedicated to advancing arts, culture, and heritage education through the Community-Based Learning (CBL) methodology, benefiting youth, educators, artists, and cultural workers. As Senior Manager at Arts-ED, she leads initiatives to train local school teachers in CBL and has developed an innovative online resource portal to improve access to CBL materials. Under her leadership, Arts-ED has partnered with UNESCO APCEIU and the Ministry of Education to train educators in integrating Global Citizenship Education (GCED) with CBL methodologies. Additionally, she has managed and executed cultural mapping projects in both urban and rural settings, emphasizing effective multistakeholder and community engagement.