Wednesday, April 14, 2010

UNESCO Chief Announces Her New Senior Staff

UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova has announced the new members of her senior staff:
  • Deputy Director General: Getachew Engida
  • Assistant Director General for the Education Sector: Qian Tang
  • Assistant Director General for the Natural Science Sector: Gretchen Kalonji
  • Assistant Director General for the Social and Human Sciences Sector: Maria del Pilar Alvarez-Laso
  • Assistant Director General for the Culture Sector: Francesco Bandarin
  • Assistant Director General for the Communications and Information Sector: Janis Karklins
  • Assistant Director General for the Sector for External Relations and Cooperation: Eric Falt
  • Assistant Director General for the Administration Sector: Khadija Ribes
  • Assistant Director General for the UNESCO’s Africa Department: Lalla Aïcha Ben Barka
The new staff members are expected to take office on July 1, 2010.

Dr. Gretchen Kalonji is an American who has had a distinguished career at the University of California system, the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the University of California since 2005, she was responsible for university wide international strategy development. The UC announcement of her appointment stated:
At UW, she has led a campus-wide effort to integrate collaborative international research activities into curricular pathways of students, across the disciplines and from freshmen to doctoral level. This initiative, entitled UW Worldwide, has been honored with multiple grants and awards, both in the United States and in partner regions. Over the past 10 years, Kalonji has been the principal or co-principal investigator on more than $19 million dollars of related grants.

Professor Kalonji’s work, both in materials science and in educational transformation, has been recognized by numerous awards and honors, including: the Presidential Young Investigator Award; the George E. Westinghouse Award from the American Society for Engineering Education; the Leadership Award from the International Network for Engineering Education and Research, and the National Science Foundation’s Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars, the highest honor offered by the NSF. Professor Kalonji has held visiting faculty appointments at numerous universities and institutes around the world, including the Max Planck Institute (Germany), the University of Paris (France), Tohoku University (Japan), and Sichuan University and Tsinghua University (China). She serves on numerous national and international advisory boards and committees, particularly for projects and organizations focusing on innovations in education, equity and access in higher education, and international science and engineering. Prof. Kalonji has been called upon to give more than 115 invited lectures in institutions around the world.

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