CIEstudents participate in a wide array of professional development activities during their degree programs. Some of these are on campus at Tuesday Dialogues or at other locations at UMass. Others involve attending national conferences, regional conferences, workshops and conferences in the region.
Professional Development
Three CIE members contribute to the November 2023 issues of the Comparative Education Review.
CIE graduates Stephen Richardson and Yaelle Stempfelet create Wonder Lab, a consulting team. Recent work includes research on Ukrainian youth refugees.
CIE hosts monthly meetings of an international "Café Without Borders" to bring together a community of graduate students from around the world.
Gerald Fonville, a UMass scholar in African American and environmental child trauma, discussed racial socialization as a technique to rebuild “lost” connections and as a mechanism to increase resilience to environmental trauma. His research explores the unique mechanisms of African American traumatization as well as individuals’ methods of healing. 
Nangyalai Attal has been awarded a visiting fellowship with the Echidna Global Scholars Program of the Brookings Institute
For the second year in a row, the CIES annual conference was held virtually via Zoom. With the lessons learned from 2020, the conference organizers were able to provide a very smooth and effective platform for participants from anywhere in the world.
Beginning in the spring of 2021, CIE in collaboration with the Educator Preparation Office of the College of Education began a series of virtual seminars focusing on trauma exposure and recovery in crisis and conflict education settings. The seminars seek to bear witness to children and families in diverse contexts of trauma exposure and to inform education and intervention for healing and recovery. 
As CIE graduates retire or approach the end of their professional careers, they face the question of what to do with all that they have done, learned, and written. They ask themselves if others might benefit in some way from their work, but face the challenge of how to share their experience. 
Lina Heaster-Ekholm received a Graduate School Dissertation Grant for 2020-2021 to support her dissertation research that focuses on designing culturally responsive pedagogy for online learning of international students.
Pempho Chinkondenji was selected as a Research Associate by the Five College Women's Studies Research Center. Her research focuses on issues related to school-girl pregnancy in Malawi.