Board Member Bios
Akwasi Addae-Boahene is an education systems reform and delivery specialist with over 30 years of experience across Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the intersection of education policy, public-sector governance, and reform implementation. His work addresses a persistent challenge in education reform: the gap between ambitious policy goals and disciplined implementation. He assists governments, ministries, and development partners in designing delivery mechanisms, governance frameworks, coordination platforms, and accountability systems that transform national plans into tangible improvements in teaching and learning. Currently, he serves on the International Trustees Board of Sabre Education, an early childhood education organization, and is a Fellow at the HP Cambridge Partnership for Education. As the Chief Technical Adviser for Transforming Teaching, Education and Learning (T-TEL), he played a key role in shaping Ghana's teacher education reforms, which led to the establishment of the National Teachers' Standards, the National Teacher Education Curriculum Framework, and a new Bachelor of Education curriculum. He firmly believes that meaningful education reform requires shared ownership, continuous learning, and the courage to rethink how teacher education prepares young people for life, work, and national development.
Beatrice Ávalos is Professor, University of Chile’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, charged with its teachers’ research strand. Awarded in 2013 the Chilean National Prize for Educational Sciences. She has researched and published studies on the teaching profession, teacher education, and education policies from Papua New Guinea to Latin America and Book publications include Historical Development of Teacher Education in Chile (with Leonora Reyes, 2020) and Héroes o Villanos: La Profesión Docente en Chile (2013), a national study on Chilean teachers’ view of their profession. Prof. Ávalos is part of international journal boards of Teaching and Teacher Education, and the International Journal of Educational Development.
Mariana Coolican is a Research Fellow at the Global Research Center for Education Policy and Planning (GEPP) within the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS) at Kobe University, Japan. She holds a Ph.D. from Kobe University and a Master of Education from Naruto University of Education, Japan. She serves on the Board of Directors and previously held the position of Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET). Dr. Coolican has also been a Project Associate Professor at Kobe University. Her research experience includes appointments as Visiting Researcher at the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) Office for Latin America and the Caribbean and at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL). Dr. Coolican has significant international experience, having worked as an International Education Consultant and Researcher in 12 countries. She has authored and co-authored numerous reports, journal articles, and book chapters on education policy, social policy, and educational curriculum. She holds a Ph.D. from Kobe University and a Master of Education from Naruto University of Education, Japan.
Di Cullen. It was in 2003 when I attended my first ICET World Assembly which was held in Melbourne, Australia. Little did I know then that I would end up being on the ICET Board and a regional representative for Australia and the South Pacific. Having been a member of the ICET community has expanded my educational knowledge, experience and practice. Throughout my career I have taught in primary and secondary schools and held a number of leadership positions. However, over the past 29 years I lectured at Australian Catholic University in the Faculty of Education. My research and publications have centred around teacher education policy and Teaching English as a Second Language.Thanks to my participation in the ICET World Assemblies I have been able to take an international view of educational developments around the world which has helped broaden my outlook and understanding of educational change.
Joseph Jinja Divala is an Associate Professor in Philosophy of Education. I have been teaching and researching in teacher education for over 15 years in South Africa. During this period of service to education, I have worked mostly in initial teacher education programmes from the foundation phase to senior and further education training bands. I have also supervised research students at honours, master's and doctoral levels. I am currently a rated researcher with the National Research Foundation of South Africa.I have worked at the University of the Witwatersrand, and I am currently working at the University of Johannesburg. In these institutions, I have served in numerous roles such as being the coordinator of Master's and PhD studies, head of department, member of ethics committees and in many other committees.
Within South Africa, I have served in a number of committees at the National Research Foundation as well as the Council on Higher Education. Globally and at different times and periods, I have been a member of associations such as the International Network of Philosophers of Education, the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. I have also collaborated with CiCea and CitizED on ‘Young People's Citizenship and Education: Building Collaborations in Communities’. I serve on a number of journal editorial boards, such as the South African Journal of Higher Education, Citizenship Teaching and Learning, among others.
I became a member of ICET in 2014. Over time, I have served the ICET family in a number of roles as conference co-chair, Regional Vice President for the Africa region, an executive Board Member and Board Chair.
Dr. Deborah Eldridge, now retired, holds a doctoral degree from Boston University in Language, Literacy and Cultural Studies and a masters degree from the University of Texas at Austin is in Bilingual Education. Dr. Eldridge engaged in teacher preparation throughout her career. Before retirement, she served at Western Governors University (WGU) as Dean and Academic Vice President of WGU’s Teachers College and as Director of Academic Engagement. Prior to WGU, she was the Senior Vice President of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the governing body that formed from the merger of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC). While serving in that role, she drafted the preliminary policies and procedures of CAEP and provided overall administration for accreditation operations, including international accreditations. Dr. Eldridge was a full professor as Dean of Education at Lehman College, department chair at Montclair State University, and department chair of Curriculum and Teaching at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Deb currently offers consulting services in the areas of teacher preparation and accreditation.
Carol Hordatt Gentles currently serves President of ICET (2022-2027). She joined ICET in 2013 and served as Chair of the Board from 2019-2021. Dr. Hordatt Gentles holds a PhD in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning in Teacher Education from the Ontario Institute of Educational Studies, University of Toronto; a Master’s Degree in Educational Psychology, a Diploma in Education specializing in Geography and Social Studies from UWI, Mona; and a BA in Psychology from York University, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Hordatt Gentles is a Teacher Education and Teacher Development Specialist. In this capacity she has worked as a Consultant with the USAID, the World Bank, UNESCO, and the Grenada Ministry of Education on various projects across the Caribbean. She has also served on local, national, and international boards including the University Council of Jamaica, the Advisory Board for Undergraduate Studies at the University of Technology, and the Grace Kennedy Foundation Board. Dr. Hordatt Gentles retired as a Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education from the School of Education, UWI, Mona, Jamaica in 2025. She continues to conduct research on critical, caring pedagogy, excessive entitlement, and teacher voice.
David Mandzuk is an Emeritus Board Member of ICET and has served the organization as a board member representing North America and as Board Chairperson from 2015 to 2017. After a successful teaching career in the Canadian public school system, Dr. Mandzuk moved to the University of Manitoba where for 25 years, he taught a variety of courses in the social foundations of education and served in senior leadership roles such as Associate Dean (Undergraduate Programs) and Dean of the Faculty of Education as well as Acting Dean of the Division of Extended Education. Dr. Mandzuk’s areas of research interest include: the sociology of education, teacher education, and higher education leadership. He has been a member of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education for 35 years, and among his scholarly activities, he has given over 85 scholarly presentations, published 25 papers and book chapters, and co-authored three books including his most recent entitled, "Navigating Uncertainty: Sensemaking for Educational Leaders" published by Brill|Sense in 2018.
Dr. Mandzuk was recently appointed as Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and was honoured as a Lifetime Member of the Association of Canadian Deans of Education. He is currently on the international editorial board of the Journal of Education for Teaching and Education Sciences and continues to work with graduate students.
Martha Maria Prata-Linhares is a professor at the Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM) in Uberaba, Brazil. She is a faculty member in the Graduate Program in Education (PPGE/UFTM) and the Department of Education in Science, Mathematics, and Technologies (DECMT/UFTM). She holds a Master’s and a PhD in Education: Curriculum from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). Her academic work focuses on teacher education and teacher professional development. She is the leader of the Research Group on Teacher Education, Digital Culture, and Learning (FORPROCA/CNPq) and conducts research on teacher education, and more recently in self-evaluation in graduate education programs.
James Noble-Rogers was Executive Director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET), a membership organisation for universities involved in teacher education and education research, from 204 until his retirement in 2026. Prior to taking up this position in 2004, he was Head of Governance at the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) for four years. Before that he was, from 1987-2000, a civil servant in the Education Department (in its various guises) and the Teacher Training Agency. He was born in 1961 and has an Honours degree in Humanities from Hatfield Polytechnic, a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Nottingham and a Postgraduate Diploma with distinction from City University, London. He is an Honorary Fellow of Wolverhampton University, and in 2015 was awarded an honorary master’s degree in Education from the University of Hertfordshire. In 2022 he received an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University. He has attended 11 ICET conferences and has been an ICET Board member since 2008.
Dr. Joanna (Jo) Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the Graduate Research School at Federation University in Australia. She held previous positions in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland and the College of Education at University of Oregon. Before completing her Ph.D. in Education Policy and Administration from the University of Southern California, Jo began her education career as an English and ESL teacher at an Islamic secondary school in Melbourne, Australia, where she became interested the ways students’ school experiences are affected by, and a reaction to, the institutional patterns of culture and values, power imbalances, and political and economic systems that serve to hinder or enable school success. Building on her experiences, Jo’s research employs a systems-level theory of education to explore the links between education policy, leadership, and the improvement of schools and school systems.
Roman Švaříček is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Sciences at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. His research focuses on teacher professional development, classroom discourse, dialogic teaching, civic education, and qualitative research methodology. He is particularly interested in how teachers and students navigate participation, dialogue, and controversial issues in educational settings.
Dr. Shirley Van Nuland, formerly academic lead and associate professor in the Faculty of Education, now serves as an adjunct professor at Ontario Tech University. To these past and current positions she brings more than 25 years of teaching experience gleaned from her roles as teacher and principal in Ontario’s elementary and secondary school systems and as an education officer with the Ontario Ministry of Education. Her teaching, research and service have been recognized through the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from Nipissing University, the Service Award from the Canadian Association for Foundations of Education (CAFE), the Publication Award from CAFE, and the Dr. Darrel Bloom Service Award from the International Council on Education for Teaching. From the many courses she taught, Shirley enjoyed her work in “Education Law, Policy, and Ethics” and “Foundations of Education.” Currently she is a Deputy Editor for the Journal of Education for Teaching. Her research interests continue to include standards of practice, ethical standards, and codes of conduct as these intersect in the lives of teachers and students.
Associate Professor Dr Sita Yiemkuntitavorn is currently a full-time lecturer in School of Educational Studies, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University. She received her Bachelor Degree in Liberal Arts, major in Linguistics and minor in English from Thammasat University in 1999. In 2001 and 2003, she graduated M.Ed major in TESOL and M.Ed (research) with Second Class Honor Upper Division from The University of Tasmania, Australia. In 2005, she received her PhD in Education (Linguistics) from The University of Tasmania, Australia. Her expertise is in the field of TESOL, language learning and teaching, applied linguistics and related topics. She is also recognised as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) from the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) in teaching and learning support.