Assistant Professor of Migration Studies; Director of the Institute for Migration Studies, Lebanese American University Dr. Jasmin Lilian Diab (she/هي) is a scholar and expert in Migration, Gender and Conflict Studies. Dr. Diab is the Director of the Institute for Migration Studies (IMS) at LAU, where she also serves as an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Migration Studies at the Department of Communication, Mobility and Identity (CMI). Dr. Diab is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University and a Global Fellow at Brown University’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies. As of 2024, she is a Visiting Professor in Migration Studies at Sciences Po Lyon. Prior to her position at LAU, Dr. Diab served as the Refugee Health Program Coordinator and Research Associate in Political Economy of Health in Conflict at the Global Health Institute at the American University of Beirut (2019-2021), and Research and Project Manager at the Lebanese Emigration Research Center at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Notre Dame University-Louaize (2013-2019). She holds a PhD in International Relations with an emphasis on Refugees, Asylum and Security from HEIP’s Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies (CEDS) in Paris, France. Her research has been awarded the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies Seed Grant from Brown University (2023), as well as the Williams Institute LGBTI Global Small Grant from the University of California, Los Angeles’ School of Law (2023). Dr. Diab serves as an Editorial Board Member for Refugee Survey Quarterly, Frontiers in Sociology - Migration and Society and PLOS Global Public Health where she also serves as Guest Editor in ‘Humanitarian Aid, Conflict and Migration’. She is also an Advisory Board Member ‘Migration, Displacement, and Development’ Book Series. In addition to serving on the boards of organizations working in the migration and development space, Dr. Diab has completed 100+ consultancies for UN Agencies, international humanitarian organizations and governments, evaluating humanitarian programming, leading research in conflict settings, leading gender analyses, and developing strategic plans for organizations targeting hard-to-reach areas and displaced populations across the MENA region.
Professor of Political Science, Purdue University Short bio sketch: James A. McCann is a Professor of Political Science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. Originally from the Chicago area, he earned a BA at Illinois State University with the support of an Illinois General Assembly Scholarship. He did his doctoral studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder and had a two-year “pre-doc” appointment at the Government Data Center at Harvard University before joining the faculty at Purdue. McCann conducts research and teaches courses on public opinion, campaigns, and representation in the United States and abroad, particularly Latin America. Much of his current work focuses on the political incorporation of immigrants. He has coauthored three books and published articles in many academic journals, including the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Politics, and the Latin American Research Review. With Michael Jones-Correa, McCann is a principal investigator of the 2012 and 2016-17 Latino Immigrant National Election Studies (LINES). His research has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the US Fulbright Program. He has held Visiting Scholar appointments at the Russell Sage Foundation, the Brookings Institution, the Catholic University of America, and Carleton University. In 2000, McCann was an official observer of the Mexican presidential election.
Lecturer in Animation at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle Jack McGrath has a background in Fine Arts from the University of Sydney and has lectured in film and animation for a number of years at the University of Sydney, Australian Film Television and Radio School and The University of Technology Sydney. McGrath’s background in fine arts has led to a unique experimental style of animation, working and collaborating with other artists in different disciplines has given birth to a different perspective and aesthetic in animation. He has written and directed a wide range of short films that have been screened around Australia and internationally, and has founded the company Conceptavision; a Sydney based production company that creates animation and video content for academic institutions, non for profit organisations and businesses.
Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Western University Dr. Jennifer Guthrie is an Assistant Professor at Western University with a primary appointment in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology and a cross-appointment in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics. Her research focuses on pathogens of public health concern and takes an interdisciplinary approach—combining bioinformatics, epidemiology, public health, genomics and microbiology.
Teaching Professor of Management and Organization, University of Notre Dame Jessica McManus Warnell teaches undergraduate and MBA courses in business ethics, sustainability, inclusive leadership, managing early career employees, and business and culture in Japan. Jessica is a past recipient of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN PRME) North America Chapter Award for Teaching Excellence. Her current research explores business students' values orientations, inclusive business and business education, and sustainable businesses and communities, including community and economic recovery in the wake of natural disasters. She served as a visiting teaching and research fellow at Reitaku University near Tokyo, and continues to collaborate with scholars and business executives in Japan. A Faculty Fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies and of the Pulte Institute for Global Development, and Affiliated Faculty of the Environmental Humanities Initiative, the Gender Studies Program, the Initiative on Race and Resilience, the Environmental Change Initiative (ND-ECI), the Poverty Studies Minor, the Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society, and the Sustainability Minor, Jessica is the author of Engaging Millennials for Ethical Leadership: What Works for Young Professionals and Their Managers, part of the Giving Voice to Values collection on corporate social responsibility.
Professor of Sociology of Education, University of Luxembourg Justin J.W. Powell is Professor of Sociology of Education and Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg. His academic journey began in New York City at the Social Science Research Council, where he gained grant, project, and network administration experience. From there, he held (post-)doctoral fellowships at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, DC, the LSE, and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). With a focus on comparative institutional analysis, Powell’s work explores the dynamics of persistence and change in special and inclusive education, vocational training, higher education, and science systems. His scholarship—intersecting sociology, political science, and education—has been widely published in both English and German, earning recognition on both sides of the Atlantic. His numerous awards include the Irving K. Zola Award from the Society for Disability Studies in 2006 for Barriers to Inclusion: Special Education in the US and Germany (Routledge), analyzing the development of special and inclusive education systems cross-nationally. Powell’s dedication to advancing the comparative study of education system institutionalization is reflected in his co-authored volume Comparing Special Education: Origins to Contemporary Paradoxes (Stanford University Press, 2011), which received the Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association (Division B) in 2012. His collaborative work on The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University (Emerald, 2017) earned multiple accolades, including the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s Award for Significant Research on International Higher Education. More recently, he co-edited numerous books and co-authored European Educational Research (Re)Constructed: Institutional Change in Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway and the European Union (Symposium, 2018) and Global Mega-Science: Universities, Research Collaborations, and Knowledge Production (Stanford University Press, 2024). An alumnus of Swarthmore College (BA, with distinction in sociology/anthropology), Powell pursued graduate studies in political science and sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Humboldt University of Berlin (MA, with distinction), culminating in his doctorate (Dr. phil., sociology, summa cum laude) from the Free University Berlin. Before his appointment at the University of Luxembourg in 2012, Powell taught at several leading German universities, including Göttingen, Hanover, and the Free University Berlin. Since, he has held visiting international research and lecturer positions across Europe, including the University of Oxford (England), Bielefeld and Institute for Higher Education Research Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), Gothenburg (Sweden), and Zurich (Switzerland). His myriad research contributions and international collaborations contribute to advancing the fields of comparative education and sociology of education and science.
