Team

Professor Sarfaroz Niyozov (Research lead) has experience in teaching and conducting long-term research on marginalized communities in Canada and internationally. He has authored and co-authored around 70 publications, including books, journal articles, chapters, editorials and reviews, and held a number of leadership positions at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and in Aga Khan University in Karachi. Currently he teaches courses on cross-cultural teacher development, religious education, comparative education and research and knowledge production in the Global South. Dr Niyozov holds a PhD in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development from OISE, University of Toronto, where his dissertation won the Outstanding Dissertation from both the Comparative International Education Society and the American Education Research Association. He also earned an M.Ed in Teacher Education from Aga Khan University (Pakistan), along with dual a BA and B.Ed degree in Arabic Philology from Tajik State University. 

Dr Max Antony-Newman is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Education at the University of Glasgow. Working from a critical sociological perspective, his main focus is on school-family partnerships, education policy, and teacher education with the overarching goal of moving from parent engagement as a source of social inequality to an opportunity for social justice. Max’s work also centers immigrant and refugee students and linguistic minorities in diverse classrooms. His current research focuses on immigrants and refugees with post-Soviet backgrounds in the North American context, and the role of teacher educators in preparing teachers for parent engagement in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Anna Rzhevska educated teachers of foreign languages in the Luhansk Taras Shevchenko University of Ukraine for 20 years. Since 90s she was actively participating in re-building Ukrainian higher education after the Soviet Union’s collapse, as a researcher and a university administrator. Her monograph “Development of Contemporary West European University Education” (2011) compares universities in Andorra, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain in the 21^st century, reveals their national peculiarities, describes integration in governance, quality assurance, and international activities, etc. For many years, Anna Rzhevska served as a vice-head for the university international department in Ukraine. Her current research interests encompass internationalization, digitalization, and diversity in teaching and learning. She holds a PhD and a post-PhD degree in Education from her Ukrainian university, and a Master of Educational Technology (2023) from the University of British Columbia.

Johanna Helin is a EdD candidate in the first cohort of IELP (International Education Leadership and Policy) programme at OISE. Her thesis research aims to develop a historical policy analysis of Global Citizenship Education in the Estonian formal education policy and practice. Johanna has a long experience from working in the Estonian civil society sector and she has also worked in international organisations like UNICEF and OSCE. She holds an MA in Anthropology of Europe from University of Sussex/UK, and MA in Political Science and Social Anthropology from University of Helsinki/Finland. 

Kateryna Pashchenko is a Canadian and World Studies teacher at the University of Toronto Schools. She graduated from OISE with a Master of Teaching, focusing her research on democratic citizenship education. During her undergraduate studies in Global and International Studies at Carleton University, with a specialization in Eurasian Studies, Kateryna devoted her research efforts to studying Ukraine's democratization efforts through educational reforms. Kateryna brings her knowledge of education policy and Eurasian studies, as well as her lived experiences as an educator and an immigrant student from Ukraine.