Our Team

Alexandra Draxler is an education specialist. She spent many years at UNESCO and continues to work as an independent consultant for public and private entities. She was the Executive Secretary of UNESCO’s Delors Commission (1993-1996). She has written about technologies in education, public-private partnerships, and education policies and strategies for development. She is a member of several professional associations and is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Educational Development.

Hugh McLean is currently based in Almaty, Kazakhstan and is working on a book on the role of film and decolonizing education. Hugh has worked in education all his professional life as an activist, teacher, and funder of education. He established and directed a global education program for the Open Society Foundations from 2006-2020, which was dedicated to strengthening democratic participation in education, furthering the right to education, and building social accountability to defend education as a public good.

Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi is the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education Policy at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. She was NORRAG’s Academic Director from 2017-2022, and greatly expanded NORRAG’s research capacities and outreach.

During that time, she was seconded by Columbia University, where she is a Professor of Comparative and International Education at Teachers College, to strengthen the field of comparative and international education at The Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She held a dual academic affiliation as a full professor, splitting her time between the two institutions. A past president of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), she is actively engaged in the professionalization of international and comparative education. She published thirteen books and numerous journal articles in globalization studies, comparative policy studies (policy borrowing and lending), and international cooperation.

Starting in 2020, she serves as the Lead Researcher in the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) hub for countries in the Eastern Europe, Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, and Asia-Pacific regions.

Anna Numa Hopkins is NORRAG’s Policy Engagement Lead. She manages our policy dialogue work worldwide so that our stakeholders can access under-represented knowledge relevant to their work. Anna is an engagement expert and researcher focused on the intersections between research, policy, practice and advocacy. Her professional experience spans collaborative and multi-disciplinary working, knowledge mobilisation, methodology in the social sciences, and supporting knowledge equity. Anna has published reports and papers on how research is made for and used in policy and practice contexts, and has worked with organisations, practitioners, researchers and funders to facilitate knowledge production and knowledge sharing. She is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at University of Warwick where she studies ‘race’, anti-racism and the politics of knowledge in higher education.

José Luís Canêlhas joined NORRAG as KIX EAP Hub Manager in July 2020. José Luis has significant experience in management consulting and international development roles. José Luis worked in the financial services private sector before his career evolved to international consultancy at school and systems-level education planning and M&E roles in Africa and Southeast Asia. He also served on the Global Partnership for Education committee on Governance, Ethics, Risk and Finance. Prior to joining NORRAG, José Luis worked with Oxford Policy Management and co-authored a multi-country research – led by the University College London Institute of Education– on private education and its compliance with the right to education. José Luis holds an MA in Education Planning and Economics from the University College London Institute of Education.

Arushi Terway manages NORRAG’s work under the theme Private Sector Approaches. Dr Terway has examined innovative financing for education for the last ten years through an evidence-based approach. Her research focuses on the conceptualisation and implementation of complex, innovative financing mechanisms within the education sector that aim to bring equitable quality education to all. Currently, she is the Director of the IFE-2-Leave No One Behind project. She is also the academic director and lead instructor for the IFE Executive Education Course at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
For over 16 years, she has worked on education policy, planning, and development at global organisations like the World Bank, GPE, USAID, SDC, IPNED, FHI360, OSF and R4D. She holds a Doctorate in Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, a Master of Education in International Education Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Master’s degree in Political Science (Advanced) from the Australian National University.

Michel Carton holds a PhD in Education from Geneva University, where he worked at the Psychology and Education Faculty up to 2002. He completed his academic career at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies in Geneva, of which he was director from 2005 to 2007 before being appointed vice-director of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies until his retirement in 2010. His research and field related studies focus in particular on international technical and vocational skills development policies in Western and Southern Africa, as well as in South and South-East Asia. He has been involved with NORRAG since the early 1990s.

Maren Elfert is Senior Lecturer in International Education at King’s College London. She holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia. Before pursuing an academic career, she worked for over a decade as communications and programme specialist at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. Her areas of research are global governance of education and the influence of international organizations on educational ideas and policies, and she has published on the history of international organizations in relation to education, education for development, literacy, and adult education and lifelong learning policy. Maren is very committed to editorial work and is involved in several academic journals, most importantly as submissions editor of the International Review of Education and member of the editorial board of Comparative Education.

Marina Dreux Frotté leads NORRAG’s and the GPE KIX Europe, Asia and Pacific (EAP) Hub Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL), ensuring that lessons learnt feed into the strategic planning of activities. In addition, she is part of the research team of the IFE-2-Leave No One Behind project, under the Private Sector Approaches theme. She holds extensive expertise in designing and managing MEL systems, as well as in conducting comparative and applied policy research on the topics of education financing, inclusion and equity in education, globalisation of education and curriculum reforms. Marina has previously worked for the UNESCO International Bureau of Education, Terre des Hommes Switzerland, and in various education projects in Brazil and Peru. She holds a MA in Development Studies from the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Amy Crompton is the KIX EAP Knowledge Lead for Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos PDR, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. She has diverse experience researching and developing culturally and contextually relevant solutions to advance educational outcomes for learners worldwide. Her experience working with global policymakers, donors, school leaders, teachers, and students ranges from program and curriculum development to capacity-building in research and education to engaging in high-level and institutional policy dialogue with a variety of organizations including the Institute for International Education, Save the Children, Tetra Tech ARD and the U.S. Department of State. She holds an Ed.D. in International Education Development from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Diploma Psychologist Julia Levin is a researcher, lecturer, and practitioner working at the intersection of international educational assessment, teacher training, and conflict mediation. She is the lead for the TIMSS 2023 study’s subproject “Digitization at Elementary Schools in Germany” at the university of Hamburg, researching digitalization and the link to teaching quality and educational results.
Since 2012 she is involved in the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) East-West Dialogue program, working on a project with a focus on dissemination of mediation in Moldova, Transnistria, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan through research and development projects.
She previously worked for the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Central Asia developing the first large-scale assessment study in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

As Knowledge Lead in the context of the Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) project, she supports the Asia, Europe, the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa (EAP) Hub. Working closely with partners from Caucasus, Central Asia, Eastern Europe she is active in efforts to enhance knowledge exchange and to promote evidence informed policy and practice.

A Professor of international and comparative education and education administration at Helwan University in Egypt. She is the KIX/EAP knowledge lead for Bangladesh, Maldives, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen as well as NORRAG Regional Editor for the Arabic special issues. She has experience with education sector analysis ESA and planning at a few countries in the Arab region in collaboration with UNESCO, OECD and The World Bank. Sharaf was formerly the vice president for students’ affairs of the Egyptian National E-Learning University and the Egyptian cultural attaché in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Anouk Pasquier Di Dio holds a Bachelor degree in Political Economy from the University of Geneva as well as Diploma in Graphic Design from Design et Formations. Over her career Anouk has developed her skills in programme and event coordination, communications and graphic design, for both national and multi-national organizations. Anouk also has extensive experience of working in international Geneva having undertaken roles at the Green Cross International and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. She is currently responsible for NORRAG’s administrative management ensuring that everything is running in a smooth and efficient manner and also works on the production and layout of some of our publications. But as she only works part-time for NORRAG she also undertakes work as a freelance graphic designer.

Camille Chambinaud holds a MA in International Relations from Leiden University. She developed her career as an event coordinator and communications specialist working for the UN Library at Geneva and the United Nations Satellite Center in Switzerland. Camille brings her love for digital communication combined with strong planning skills to NORRAG as the new Communications and Event Coordinator.

Raül Presseguer brings to NORRAG his extensive experience in ICT projects in the private sector. Raül worked as a Head of Administration and deputy director in an Agency of the Catalan Government for ten years. In the last six years, he worked for and collaborated with several NGOs in Barcelona and Geneva including SinergiaCRM, RIDH, Human Right 2 Water and the CyberPeace Institute. Raül holds a BS in Software Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, a Master’s Degree in Marketing, strategies and Communication from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Master’s Degrees in Political Analysis and in Conflict Resolution from the Open University of Catalonia.

Lara Patil joined NORRAG as an advisor in July 2018. Her aim is to expand NORRAG’s research and capacity in the area of technology and educational development. Lara spent 10 years as an Education Strategist for Intel’s Corporate Affairs Group. In this role she was responsible for the strategic design, development, implementation and reporting of education policy and research initiatives. She represented Intel in multi-stakeholder partnerships for education. She also served as coordinator of the Private Sector and Foundations Constituency and member of the Country Grants and Performance Committee for the Global Partnership for Education. Lara holds a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She lives in southern France with her husband and their three beautiful children.

Chris Henderson has over 10 years of experience in the humanitarian and international development sectors with a specific focus on teachers’ work and professional development. Chris was the co-chair of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies’ (INEE) Teachers in Crisis Contexts (TiCC) Working Group, and he has also worked with UNHCR, UNICEF, and the World Bank on a wide range of research, evidence synthesis, and knowledge production initiatives. Chris is currently completing a doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he is researching Rohingya refugee teachers’ work and development in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Daniel Shephard is the lead of NORRAG’s Missing Data Project, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the International and Global Education Department at the School for International Training, and a Research Affiliate at the University of Glasgow. His current research focuses on the inclusion of displaced learners in public school systems, the global education data regime, and his work makes contributions to comparative and international education, forced migration, analytical sociology, and development studies through the use of mixed methods. His research has involved children, youth, teachers, and educational staff in 30 countries. He completed his PhD and MPhil in Comparative and International Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and his MSc in Evidence Based Social Intervention at the University of Oxford.

Felicitas Acosta is a full-time researcher at Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Argentina where she teaches Comparative Education, History of education and Educational Foundations. She is also a Professor at Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Her research interests focus on the expansion of schooling from a transnational and historical perspective including international educational reforms, secondary education expansion and, more recently, standardized assessments and innovative finance in education. She has served as a research consultant for international organizations such as ECLAC, IIEP, OEI/EUROsoCIAL, UNESCO and UNICEF. In 2019 she was awarded the Margaret Sutherland Prize in Comparative Education by the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE). Since 2021 she serves as member of the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE) Executive Committee. At present, she is NORRAG NSI’s Spanish editor.

Marina Avelar, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Her research is focused on the growing engagement of new actors in education and new forms of governance, which she explores in intersection with the digitalization of education and globalization. She completed her PhD at the University College London – Institute of Education, with a research visiting period at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Spain. She has published journal papers and book chapters and is the author of the book “Disrupting education policy: how new philanthropy works to change education” (2020). As a research consultant, she has worked on topics related to human rights and the right to education with international organisations such as the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Privatisation in Education and Human Rights Consortium (PEHRC), and the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education.

Bart Sebastiaan Gabriel is a doctoral researcher at The Graduate Institute (IHEID) in International Relations. His dissertation research is concerned with the organizational relationalities of scholarly International Relations, aimed at interrogating the construction of disciplinary identity and its often-exclusionary political commitments. From the vantage point of the classroom, the dissertation deconstructs the canon of IR and deploys a decolonial framework to offer means of resisting the discipline’s political and historical baggage. Working with and on the politics of higher education, Bart is passionate about the university’s potentiality as an institution of positive change. Besides International Relations Theory, his research interests include the Sociology of Knowledge, Bibliometrics, Social Network Analysis, digital participatory politics, and the World Politics/Popular Culture Continuum.

Previously having supported several NORRAG projects, Bart has joined NORRAG as a Network Regional Coordinator for the North America and Europe regions in September 2022. In this role, Bart offers support to members as they navigate the newly launched Social Systems Map, a robust technology allowing members to map their existing connections, as well as find new connections based on common interests, geographic regions or thematic expertise. Bart will also facilitate outreach and remain a primary point of contact in the regional development of the NORRAG Network.

Edem Dorothy Ossai is a lawyer and development practitioner with over 15 years working at the intersections of child rights, education and gender issues in Nigeria and Africa. She is the founder and current director of MAYEIN, a nonprofit based in Nigeria working to advance children and youth development through equity in education, entrepreneurship development, and civic pathways—ensuring that girls are not left behind. An inaugural Obama Foundation scholar, in 2018, Edem initiated Girls without Borders, a school-based program that teaches adolescent girls about their rights and how to exercise their agency. With a keen passion for strengthening evidence based policy and systems for education equity and gender responsiveness, Edem has published several resources and blogs including a policy brief on gender responsive education in emergencies in Nigeria. In 2021 she was appointed as an Echidna Global Scholar at the Centre for Universal Education (CUE), in Brookings Institution, Washington DC. She also served as the country consultant for the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Minimum Standards (MS) Update Process in Nigeria in 2022 and has provided several consultations for the Women’s Gender and Development Directorate of the African Union (AU) Commission, in Addis Ababa. Edem holds a master’s degree in International Development and Policy from the University of Chicago. She also obtained her first master’s degree in Cultural and Media Studies from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. A recipient of several awards for her work in education and gender equality, in 2016, Edem was appointed a Mandela Washington Fellow by the U.S. State Department. She also received an African American Institute Pitch Fest Prize at the State of Education in Africa Conference, Nigeria in 2015, and a Commonwealth Women in Leadership Prize (conferred at the Tenth Women Affairs Ministers’ Meeting) in Bangladesh (2013).

Anaka Harish Ganesh works as a project officer for the KIX EAP Hub. As a project officer, she works closely with countries in South Asia, South-East Asia, and the Pacific region and supports the hub’s MEL and communications work. Anaka also works as a Research Assistant on the IFE-2-Leave No One Behind project under the Private Sector Approaches theme. As part of this project, she has co-authored the Impact Bonds database. She has also contributed to the data collection and analysis of the World Bank REACH-funded project on “Results-based financing at the sub-national government and school administration level”. She holds a Master in Political Science (Advanced) from the Australian National University.

Veronika Mosolova is studying for an MA in Standardization, Social Regulation, and Sustainable Development at the University of Geneva.
Her research interests are inclusive education as well as education as a tool for poverty eradication and development. She has prior experience with both profit and non-profit sectors and is also engaged with several NGOs in Russia in the field of curative pedagogics and assistance to children with disabilities.

Georgia Thorne is a Research Assistant in the Innovative Financing for Education (IFE) team at NORRAG. She currently works to support the IFE-2-Leave No One Behind project and has previously contributed to the data collection and analysis for the World Bank REACH-commissioned project on “Results-based financing at the sub-national government and school administration level”. Her areas of expertise lie in results-based financing and early childhood education. She holds a MA in Development Studies from the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Balasubramanyam Pattath, or Balu, is a PhD Candidate in Development Economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He is also a Research Assistant in the Innovative Financing for Education (IFE) team at NORRAG and currently works to support the IFE-2-Leave No One Behind project. He has previously worked as a consultant with teams from Social Protection, Poverty, and Finance, Competition, and Innovativeness global practices at the World Bank Group. Prior to his PhD, he was a Research Associate at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Balu holds a Master in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute.

Allison Vas recently graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University with a master’s degree in International Educational Development and a concentration in Policy and Planning. Prior to this she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education at Western Connecticut State University, participated in the Fulbright Program, and taught abroad in Estonia. Her research interests include education policy, teacher advocacy, student well-being, and multilingual education. She brings to the team additional expertise on communications and outreach, and data analysis and visualisation.

After her studies in sociology in Geneva, where she obtained a master’s degree in 2003, Thanh started her career as a personnel manager in the field of marketing. Later, in the same field, she was project manager for two of the largest operational marketing agencies in Lausanne.
Thanks to her different skills in personnel, administration and finance, she worked for different research centres within the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva as an administrative manager. Currently, she continues to provide administrative support to NORRAG, while working for a pediatric cancer research foundation as an administrative and financial manager.

Fabienne holds over 20 years of experience in education programmes and governance; policy dialogue and research; management of teams and large-scale projects; building productive relations with national governments and donors in Africa, Europe and Latin America.

Mathilde Jacquin El Bajji holds a Master’s Degree in Social Development from La Sorbonne Paris 1, Institute of Economic and Social Development Studies. She also graduated with a degree in Management Science from EM Lyon Business School in France. Mathilde has previously worked for the Education Above All Foundation, for Qatar Foundation for Education and Research, and for international consulting firms. At present, she supports NORRAG’s backstopping mandate to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Mathilde holds extensive experience in project evaluation, project monitoring and partnership development in the field of international aid and education, more specifically in the topics of equity, inclusion, and quality. Originally from France, she spent most of her professional life abroad, in Morocco, Qatar and now Switzerland.