Lusayo is originally from Lilongwe, Malawi. After getting her Bachelor’s Degree in Communications there she became a Project Coordinator with the Center for Alternatives for Victimized Women and Children (CAVWOC).  In that position she facilitated, organized and conducted community mobilization and sensitization meetings on HIV and AIDS, Education, Women’s empowerment, Human Rights and child protection issues.  She then entered the Master’s program International Education at UMass Amherst.

Before coming to CIE, Leslie was a Peace Corps volunteer St. Lucia and then continued to work with Peace Corps as a Task Force Outreach Specialist, first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C.

She earned a Masters of Public Administration at Rutgers University in an accelerated program which included a year of community service in Camden as a Project Manager.  Subsequently she completed an Advanced Masters of Education degree in International Education and Policy at Teachers College Columbia.

My research interests focus on the relationship between online learning and culture, with the goal of developing effective instructional design practices to meet the needs of diverse learners.

Javid completed his degree in International Education at UMass Amherst in February 2023. His dissertation was titled, Accreditation of Teaching and Research Universities in Afghanistan: A Policy Implementation Analysis. The dissertation analyzes the historical development of quality assurance and accreditation systems in Afghanistan and some developing countries. During his doctoral program, Javid published four articles in peer-reviewed journal articles, an encyclopedia entry, and a media review.

After leaving CIE, I returned to my previous position as a literacy specialist supporting mother tongue literacy initiatives among Darfur refugees in eastern Chad. It was good to be back with some new ideas and inspiration after my time at CIE. My team leader retired not too long after, so I am now the project coordinator and spend a lot more time in the office these days, writing reports and proposals.

After graduating from CIE, Surl Hee was involved with INEE's capacity development survey doing quantitative analysis under the initiative of Stephen Richardson. More recently she has been at home in Delaware supporting her two kids, Ahron and Einne, with their remote learning.  She looks forward to going back to professional work when her kids get a little older, and schools reopen!

After completing her Master’s degree Evangeline worked with Stephen Richardson as a consultant with the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE).  She was part of a team conducting a mapping and market analysis of the capacity development needs of the EiE sector as input to the capacity building strategy for INEE.

In September 2018 Laureen joined the Bina Hill Institute Youth Learning Center as its Principal. The center is the only tertiary educational institution in the country’s hinterland, located in Guyana’s North Rupununi district.  Although the two-year syllabus includes English and math, classes focus on areas relevant to life in Guyana’s interior, such as agriculture, natural resource management, forestry, tourism, traditional crafts and Makushi, one of the local indigenous languages. 

After graduating from CIE, I went to Malawi and started volunteering for Outernet, which is an Open Access education project initiated by several professors at UMass Amherst. Based at the National Library in Blantyre, I worked on systematic evaluation of the initial sets of transmissions to the Malawi schools and libraries that UMass Amherst has been supporting.

I have had several notable accomplishments in my life. Probably the most notable was that I completed my master’s degree in international education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The master’s degree program equipped me with the significant knowledge, skills, and tools that I needed for my work in managing development and humanitarian projects. I would like to thank the Center for International Education (CIE) at UMass Amherst for providing me with an assistantship and the opportunity to work at the University Support and Workforce Development Project (USWDP).