Three outstanding scholars have been elected to serve as officers of the World Education Research Association (WERA) in the positions of President-Elect (two-year term), Vice President (two-year term), and Secretary General (re-elected for a four-year term). This association of 28 national, regional, and international specialty research associations aims to advance education research as a scientific and scholarly field worldwide to serve the public good.
The newly elected leadership is:
WERA President Elect: Geovana Mendonça Lunardi Mendes is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Education and Human Sciences at the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC), Brazil. She currently serves as Vice-President of the World Education Research Association (WERA) for two consecutive terms (2022–2024 and 2024–2026) and as Vice-President of ALIE (Latin American Educational Research Association) for the 2024–2026 term. She also served two terms as President of ANPEd (National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Education, Brazil) during 2019–2021 and 2021–2023, and two terms as Vice-President between 2014–2019.
Prof. Lunardi Mendes holds a bachelor’s degree in special education Pedagogy (Federal University of Santa Catarina, 1994), a master’s degree in education (Federal University of Santa Catarina, 2000), and a Ph.D. in Education: History, Politics, and Society (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, 2005), which included a research exchange in Curriculum and Technologies at the University of Minho, Portugal. She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of San Andrés (Argentina, 2010), Ashland University (USA, 2011), and Arizona State University (USA, 2018–2019), supported by CAPES and CNPq scholarships. An active member of the WERA Council since 2016, she has been a leading force in fostering collaboration between educational research associations across regions. A CNPq Research Fellow (PQ) since 2017, she maintains a strong research agenda on curriculum studies, educational policies, school practices, and digital technologies, emphasizing curricular innovation, inclusion, and cultural responsiveness. She is internationally recognized for her academic leadership and commitment to equity and cognitive justice worldwide. In 2025, she led the organization of the WERA Focal Meeting in João Pessoa, Brazil—the first ever held in South America and the largest in WERA’s history—with over 3,000 participants and 1,000 new WERA members, marking a milestone in WERA’s global outreach and inclusive engagement. Prof. Lunardi Mendes is widely respected for her ability to build bridges among diverse research communities, promote contextually grounded and globally connected collaboration, and inspire new generations of educational researchers.
WERA Vice President: Yuto Kitamura is Professor at the Graduate School of Education and the Special Advisor to the President for International Strategic Planning at the University of Tokyo in Japan. He is a member of the Executive Boards of the Japan Educational Research Association (JERA) and the Japan Society for International Development Studies. He is also the Board Member of the Japan Society of Comparative Education. He has been actively participating in various activities of the World Education Research Association (WERA), including his service as the Appointed Liaison Officer and as the Council Member representing the JERA. He contributed significantly to the success of organizing the WERA Focal Meeting in 2019 that took place in Tokyo, Japan. He is also a member of the Board of Education at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, an Associate Member of the Science Council of Japan, a member and the Chair of Education Committee at the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, the Visiting Fellow at the JICA Research Institute for Peace and Development, and the Special Advisor to the Rector of Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia.
He specializes in comparative education and has been conducting extensive research on education policies of developing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. He also conducts his research on the internationalization of higher education. In order to reflect his research on this topic to practice, he has served as an Advisor for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. In this capacity, he has been representing the Government of Japan to the ASEAN Plus Three Working Group on Student Mobility and Quality Assurance of Higher Education for over ten years. Moreover, he researches how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been practiced in countries such as Japan, Sweden, and Cambodia.
His recent publications include Education in Japan: A Comprehensive Analysis of Education Reforms and Practices (co-editor, Springer, 2019), Memory in the Mekong: Regional Identity, Schools, and Politics in Southeast Asia (co-editor, Teachers College Press, 2022), and Towards Ensuring Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education for All: Analyzing School Enrolment Patterns (co-editor, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). He has also published papers in international journals with a high reputation in comparative education, such as Comparative Education Review, Prospects, and International Review of Education.
He worked in the Education Sector of UNESCO Headquarters and taught at Nagoya University and Sophia University in Japan. He had served as the Fulbright Scholar at the George Washington University and the Visiting Professor at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. He has worked on various education projects with international organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). He is a recipient of the 14th JSPS Prize, one of the highest honors for young scholars in Japan. He also received an Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from Stockholm University. He received his B.A. in education from Keio University in Japan and his M.A. and Ph.D. both in education from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
WERA Secretary General: Prof Rocío García-Carrión is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Faculty of Education and Sport, University of Deusto (Spain). Her research focuses on inclusive learning environments that foster equitable participation, enhancing both academic and socioemotional development. Through a sociocultural lens, her work has examined how dialogic interactions improve learning outcomes and strengthen social cohesion by creating engaging, safe, and supportive learning environments—particularly for systematically marginalised populations.
Her studies have contributed to understanding classrooms as dialogic spaces for inclusion and equity, where every child can learn, be heard, and feel valued and respected, and where educators become generative teachers who create these learning contexts.
Her leadership as an international scholar in education has been consolidated through her coordination of major international research projects and extensive collaborations with scholars across the world. She has recently coordinated the Horizon Europe project SCIREARLY, aiming at reducing early school leaving through evidence-based policies and practices that improve academic achievement and well-being. She has also led several research projects funded by the Spanish National R&D Plan and has participated in over 30 competitive projects at European, national, and regional levels.
She has published extensively, with more than 70 peer-reviewed articles, books, and book chapters in leading international journals. Her work has been presented in over 100 international conferences, where she has delivered keynote and invited presentations. She has carried out research and teaching collaborations in institutions such as the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and Wolfson College, as well as in Latin American institutions. She holds active editorial roles in leading international journals, including the Journal for the Study of Education and Development, AERA Open, and Learning in Context. She has supervised numerous master’s and 10 doctoral theses, many of which received competitive research funding.
Since 2022, she has served as Secretary General of the World Education Research Association (WERA), where she has played a central role in modernising the Secretariat, strengthening financial sustainability, and expanding WERA’s global footprint through the growth of association, institutional, and individual members. She has co-chaired the International Research Networks (IRN) and Financial Committees, contributed to the Task Force on Global Challenges in Educational Research, and led the organisation of WERA Focal Meetings in Singapore (2023), Manchester, UK (2024), and João Pessoa, Brazil (2025). She has collaborated in the new contract with Emerald for the WERA book series and is co-editing the International Perspectives in Education Research: Discovering Effective Practices in Teaching and Learning. Throughout her career, Prof Rocío García-Carrión has demonstrated a strong commitment to advancing inclusive and evidence-informed education research and to fostering international collaboration that strengthens the global impact of educational science and promotes equitable opportunities for all learners.
WERA’s new officers assume their positions on July 1, 2026. The Council, which governs WERA, is composed of the officers who were elected by member associations and one representative from each of the 28 WERA member associations.
About WERA
Founded in 2009, WERA is an association of national, regional, international, and specialty research associations dedicated to advancing education research as a scientific and scholarly field. WERA’s initiatives are global in nature, transcending what any single association can accomplish in its own country, region, or area of specialisation. For further information on WERA and its programs, please visit the WERA Website.
Contact: WERA Secretariat, wera@aera.net.