Prof. Liesel Ebersöhn
President (July 2024 – June 2026)
Director, Centre for the Study of Resilience, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Liesel Ebersöhn, (Director: Centre for the Study of Resilience, Full Professor: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria), a registered educational psychologist and expert on social dimensions of resilience, draws on Sub-Saharan Africa evidence for critical contributions to understanding, from an Afrocentric perspective, resilience-enabling responses that promote collective wellbeing given collective distress. Her work has led to foregrounding collaborative rather than competitive responses to disruption: managing finite resources in sustainable ways that support egalitarian positive education, health and wellbeing outcomes. Through engagement in global education and poverty think tanks, panels and boards, she is influential globally in education development circles to inform policy, training and practice for sustainable transformation in the Global South. She is a recipient of numerous scientific association-, national- and institutional awards.
Geovana Mendonça Lunardi Mendes
Vice President (July 2024 – June 2026)
Geovana Mendonça Lunardi Mendes is President of ANPEd (2021-2023) – National Association of Research and Graduate Studies on Education. She was Vice President of ANPEd from 2019 to 2021, and Vice President from 2017 to 2019. She is Full Professor at the Faculty of Education and Human Sciences at the State University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the United States of America (2018/2019) at the Arizona State University. She is a National Research and receive scholarship a CNPq, since 2017. She is a coordinator of different research projects and participates as a guest researcher in national and international research projects. Her research and productions have focused on curriculum and school practices, especially issues related to changes, digital technologies, and curricular innovations in the school space, as well as the curricular practices aimed at including people with disabilities and Inclusive Education Policies.
Dr. Rocío García-Carrión
Secretary General (July 2022 – June 2026)
Ikerbasque and Ramon y Cajal Fellow (appointed Associate Professor)
Faculty of Education and Sports
University of Deusto, Spain
Dr Rocío García-Carrión is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain). She has been a Marie-Sklodowska Curie Fellow at the University of Cambridge, where she was also a member of Wolfson College and a visiting researcher at Harvard University. Her research focuses on school and community-based research to investigate dialogic learning environments as pathways to inclusion for systematically excluded populations. She has directed and participated in numerous national and international research projects (FP6, FP7, H2020, Horizon Europe).
She currently leads the Horizon Europe SCIREARLY project (https://scirearly.eu/), involving 10 European countries, dedicated to the study of evidence-based policies and practices to improve academic performance and wellbeing, and reduce early school leaving. She is a member of the Horizon Europe IMPROVA project, which promotes mental health among adolescents in educational settings (https://www.improva-project.eu/). She has served as member of the scientific committee of the EERA as Link Convenor (2016-2019). She has published prolifically (including more than 70 peer-review articles in impact journals, chapters, co-authored books, and more than 100 conference papers). She is associate editor for AERA Open journal, and Deputy Editor for Journal for the Study of Education and Development, and member of several editorial boards. She serves as reviewer for several journal and research agencies.
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5520-5105
Joe O’Hara
President-Elect (July 2024 – June 2026)
Inaugural Professor of Education, Dublin City University (DCU-I0E)
Joe O’Hara is the Inaugural Professor of Education at the Dublin City University (DCU-I0E). He was Head of the School of Education Studies, DCU from 2011-2016 and is Director of EQI- The Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection. He is also Adjunct Faculty at the Centre for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Having qualified as a secondary school teacher, he worked as Director of the Wadzanai Education Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe (1990-1994), before returning to Ireland where he was employed as a teacher prior to joining DCU. Joe O’Hara has worked in a variety of contexts as a teacher, researcher, evaluator, and administrator and he brings these experiences to his professional engagement with education. He is specifically interested in the areas of educational evaluation, networking, and culturally responsive evaluation. These interests have developed throughout an active career which contributed to a Ph.D. in Educational Evaluation (2007).
His experience as a researcher has allowed him to successfully bid for research grants from a large number of EU funding programmes with total institutional funding over the past 5 years of €1,475,786 and project value above €6,000,000. He is a committed researcher and has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters in addition to numerous policy papers. As a research mentor he is an active supervisor at Doctoral level and has graduated 31 students over the course of his career.
At national level he was awarded with the President’s Research Fellowship and the Government of Ireland IRCHSS Research Fellowship. He also worked with several international bodies including the UNDP, OECD, TAIEX, and Irish Aid. Joe O’Hara has played key leadership roles in education. Between 2002 and 2004 he was appointed by the Government of Ireland as a Director of APSO/Irish Aid and served as a member of the Teaching Council of Ireland from 2012-2016. Joe O’Hara has significant experience in representing institutions and associations at national and international level, namely as Past President of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland and Founding Director of the Irish Evaluation Network (IEN).
He represented Ireland on the Council of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) from 2008 to 2013 and served as its President from 2018-2023. During this period, he helped EERA navigate the COVID-19 crisis ensuring that the Association emerged from this period financially and organizationally intact. He was committed to ensuring that all of EERAs 42 National Associations and 33 Networks had a voice in the strategic direction of the organisation, creating in partnership a 5-year strategy and implementing it during the COVID-19 crisis. He prioritised the development of Early Career Researchers and remains a Senior Fellow of the Emerging Researchers Group. Joe O’Hara was a member of the Executive Committee and Council of the Initiative for Science in Europe and represented EERA on the Council of the European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities. Joe O’Hara was a member of WERA Council from 2018 to 2023.
Dr. Bee Leng Chua
Immediate Past President (July 2024 – June 2026)
National Institute of Education (NIE)Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Dr. Bee Leng Chua is currently the President of the Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS), Executive Director of Asia Pacific Educational Research Association (APERA), Vice-President (Asia Pacific) of the International Association of Cognitive Education and Psychology (IACEP), an executive board member for the Asia-Pacific Association-Problem-based Learning in Health Sciences (APA-PHS) and founding member of the Mediated Learning Laboratory in NIE. In addition, she is the Executive Editor for the Educational Research for Policy and Practice (ERPP) journal.
She is is an Associate Dean of Professional Practice at Teacher Education, National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. In her portfolio, she provides thought leadership and spearheads initiatives in the development of preservice teachers to be reflective practitioners with a strong teacher identity and the use of digital portfolio to chart teachers’ professional growth. Her research endeavours focus on how initial teacher preparation programmes develop reflective and inquiring teachers with a strong teacher identity and how classroom pedagogies enhance students’ learning to bring forth the intended cognitive, affective and motivational learning outcomes. To date, she has successfully been awarded a total of SGD $1,732,149 in competitive and non-competitive grants both as principal investigator or co-principal investigator. She is also part of the Singapore team involved in a 3-country/institution research study funded by the International Network of Educational Institutes (INEI). In collaboration with University of College London and University Of Toronto, the team is investigating the development of quality university-based teacher education. She has published journal papers, book chapters, professional books and given more than 30 conference presentations. Her most recent edited book is on Advances in Mediated Learning Experience for 21st Century Education (Cengage, 2019).
Appointed Advisors to the Executive Committee
Dr. Felice J. Levine
Appointed Liaison (July 2024 – June 2026)
Executive Director Emerita, American Educational Research Association, US
Felice J. Levine is Executive Director Emerita of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), based in Washington, D.C. From 1991 until 2002, Levine was Executive Officer of the American Sociological Association. She also served as Director of the Law and Social Science Program at the National Science Foundation from 1979 to 1991 and as Senior Research Social Scientist at the American Bar Foundation from 1974 to 1983. Her work has focused on research and science policy issues, research ethics, the academic and scientific workforce, and higher education. She has served as facilitator of WERA-in-formation since 2007. With interdisciplinary background across the social and behavioral sciences, she serves on the Executive Committee of the Consortium of Social Science Associations and is Vice-Chair and on the Board of Directors of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics. Levine recently served as chair of the National Research Council Workshop on Protecting Student’s Records and Facilitating Education Research. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Educational Research Association, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. She is a past President of the Law and Society Association. She received her A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago in sociology and psychology.
Prof. Ingrid Gogolin
Appointed Liaison (July 2024 – June 2026)
Director, Diversity in Education Research
Professor of International Comparative and Intercultural Education
University of Hamburg, Germany
Ingrid is professor of international comparative and intercultural education research at the University of Hamburg and director of the research group ‘Diversity in Education Research’, Faculty of Education at Hamburg University. Her research is focused on problems of migration and linguistic diversity in education. She was coordinator of the European Educational Research Quality Indicators (EERQI) project, a three-year effort to develop new indicators and methodologies on quality of education research publications. She served as the interim president of the World Education Research Association WERA from 2009-2010, and is a past president of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and the German Education Research Association (GERA/ DGfE). Dr. Gogolin was awarded an honorary doctor’s degree by the University of Dortmund in 2013.
Prof. Dr. Mustafa Yunus Eryaman
Appointed Liaison (July 2024 – June 2026)
President, International Association of Educators
Professor of Educational Policy and Curriculum Studies
Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkiye
Professor Mustafa Yunus Eryaman is a leading figure in education policy and curriculum studies, with a distinguished career spanning diverse academic institutions and leadership roles. He currently serves as Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, and has held prestigious appointments such as President of the World Education Research Association and Research Expert at the European Commission.
Dr. Eryaman’s academic journey reflects his commitment to international collaboration and intellectual exchange. He was a DAAD-TUBITAK Professor at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and a Visiting Professor and Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Metropolitan University, UK. His research interests encompass educational policy, philosophy of education, curriculum theory and research, qualitative inquiry, and progressive education, as evidenced by his publications like “Teaching as Practical Philosophy” and his editorship of renowned book series like “Evidence, Science and Public Good in Education” with Springer and “Global perspectives on Education Research” with Routledge. He received his MEd from the University of Missouri-Columbia and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He currently serves as the regional editor of the “Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies” series of Bloomsbury Publishing and editor of the SAGE Special Collection entitled “The Evolving Landscape of Qualitative Research: Embracing the Potential and Navigating the Challenges of Artificial Intelligence.”
Dr. Eryaman’s dedication to advancing knowledge extends beyond his own scholarship. He serves as the managing editor of the “Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research,” and has curated impactful edited volumes like “Evidence and Public Good in Educational Policy, Research and Practice” and “International Handbook of Progressive Education.”