Elizabeth Buckner
Assistant Professor, Leadership, Higher and Adult Education
Elizabeth Buckner examines how global trends affect national higher education policies, institutional practices, and students’ lives. Her current research focuses on three areas: private higher education, internationalization of higher education, and higher education in the Middle East and North Africa. The overarching aim of her research is to develop more historicized, socio-cultural, and politicized understandings of how globalization is affecting higher education that counter overly simplistic functional or economically deterministic logics. Ultimately, by engaging in national and international dissemination, her work seeks to inform more nuanced, inclusive, and equitable higher education policies and practices. You can find her recent publications under “publications” in the research banner.
Cassidy Gong
PhD Candidate, Higher Education
Cassidy’s dissertation examines the regional variation of the growth and development of private universities in China. She is working as a research fellow on a SSHRC-funded project conducting research on private higher education including: 1) Private universities in Ontario and how they have diversified the degree-granting HE sector; 2) Comparing subnational variation in private HEIs in Canada and China; and 3) Case studies of private universities in Canada, their issues and challenges. Prior to joining OISE as a graduate student, Cassidy worked for a decade as an administrator in various Ontario universities including Brock University and the University of Toronto. Her other areas of research interests include, student and scholar mobility and internationalization of higher education.
Freeda Bukhari Khan
PhD Candidate, Higher Education
Freeda is in the Flex time PhD program in Higher Education in LHAE at OISE. Her research interests include the internationalization of higher education, global citizenship, global competencies, intercultural competencies and measuring them through different instrument tools. Currently she works full time at the University of Toronto creating and managing international programs and she has extensive experience leading international programs to Hong Kong, China, Dubai, Qatar, India, Peru, Brazil. She also teaches part-time as a professor at Humber College.
Jessica Denenberg
PhD Candidate, Higher Education
Jessica has been working in the field of international higher education for more than fifteen years. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Higher Education in the Department of Leadership, Higher & Adult Education (LHAE), with a specialization in Comparative, International & Development Education (CIDE). Her specific research interests include the internationalization of higher education and partnership development, comparative higher education, and the German tertiary education system. On a personal note, Jessica speaks four languages and has a passion for travel. She has spent time studying and working abroad, including in Germany and Cuba. She has seven-year-old twins, a cat named Lola, and loves salsa dancing and French cuisine.
You (Yoyo) Zhang
PhD Candidate, Higher Education
You (Yoyo) Zhang’s current research focuses on higher education internationalization and regionalization from a cross-national and comparative perspective. She holds an MA in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Colombia University in the United States, an MA in Applied Linguistics and a BA in English Language and Literature from Sichuan University in China.
Yoyo’s LinkedIn and Research Gate.
Zahra Jafarova
PhD Student, Higher Education
Zahra’s research interests are focused on state-university relationships. Her doctoral thesis examines how political transformations affect higher education policies and reshape higher education institutions. She has extensive experience coordinating Higher Education Capacity Building projects and working with international students. Zahra holds a BA in International Relations from the Academy of Public Administration and an MA in Public Policy from King’s College London.
Zahra’s Linkedin.
Ceara Khoramshahi
PhD Student, Higher Education
Ceara’s primary research interests focus on post-secondary access and transition, specifically examining the factors that influence course selection in secondary school and the impact these decisions have on accessing programs of study in post-secondary education. Ceara has also conducted research on private higher education, graduate admissions processes, and student housing in Toronto. Her research experience includes conducting both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, including interviews, thematic analysis, multiple regression, HLM, and panel regression models using STATA.
Eun Gi (Cathy) Kim
PhD Student, Higher Education
Eun Gi (Cathy) is a Ph.D. student in Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)/University of Toronto. In connection to her background as a Korean immigrant in Canada, she completed her Master of Arts thesis on the topic of the academic experiences of Korean immigrant students in two Canadian universities. She is currently preparing for her doctoral dissertation, which will compare the experiences of Korean immigrant and international students at four Canadian universities.
Along with her studies, Cathy has been participating in a SSHRC Partnership Grant Project, Reciprocal Learning in Teacher Education and School Education between Canada and China, as a research assistant for Dr. Michael Connelly since 2017 and a project coordinator since 2018. Since 2019, she has also been participating in a SSHRC-funded Canada-wide project, Racialization of Asian International Students, under the guidance of Dr. Elizabeth Buckner in understanding the framing and racialization of Asian international students.
Adriana Marroquin
PhD Student, Higher Education
Adriana is a PhD Student in Higher Education and works as an International Management Consultant. Her research interests have been greatly influenced by her extensive international travel and work experiences. Through her research, Adriana seeks to promote reflection and conversations about the differences and commonalities among cultures, knowledge traditions and about what we can learn from each other (for more, listen here). Within the field of comparative international education, Adriana’s areas of interest include intercultural education, international student experience, internationalization policy and strategy, and international academic relations. Adriana holds a BASc in Computer Engineering from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and an MEd in Higher Education from the University of Toronto. Adriana’s LinkedIn and Twitter.
Punita Lumb
PhD Student, Higher Education
Punita is a PhD student in Higher Education specializing in Comparative, International and Development Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. Her primary research interests are international and comparative higher education, critical race, decolonial and postcolonial theories. Additionally, she coordinates programs rooted in decolonial thought, equity, diversity and inclusion for Student Life at the University of Toronto.
ORCID.
Miki (Shangcao) Yuan
PhD Student, Higher Education
Miki’s research interests are focused on private higher education. She is particularly interested in investigating semi-elite private universities in East Asian countries. She has been working on Dr. Buckner’s project “Partners for Development or Privatizing the Public Good? The Role of Private Higher Education in the Global Knowledge Economy”. She has five years’ teaching experience at a private university in China. She holds a Master of Education in Higher Education from the University of Toronto, a Master of Arts in Management and Organisational Analysis from the University of Warwick, and a bachelor’s degree in International Economics and Trade from Nankai University.
Marianthi Kontelli
PhD Student, Higher Education
Marianthi is working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education with a specialization in Comparative, International, and Development Education at the University of Toronto. She has completed her studies on education in Greece and in Germany and has working experience in both countries in the field of teaching. With a primary focus on international learning experiences and the internationalization of higher education, she has participated in several educational activities within Europe and is fluent in Greek, English and German. Her voluntary work also revolves around intercultural and educational matters (support of international students, intercultural associations etc.).