In cooperation with the College of Education Office of International Programs and the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Education, we are pleased to announce the third annual Hong Kong Graduate Student Exchange Program winners! Stephanie Wing Yan Chan and Michelle Marie Yi Lok Lau, two doctoral students from the University of Hong Kong, presented at the eighth Graduate Student Conference at the College of Education in March 2017.

Following a competitive process within the College, two Illinois graduate students have been selected as the 2017 exchange winners. Congratulations to Issac O. Akande and Jelena Pokimica!

Akande is a doctoral student in the Department of Education Policy, Organization & Leadership (EPOL). He is a two-time recipient of the Graduate College Distinguished Fellowship whose research interests include postcolonial studies, indigenous studies, and the history of American and Indian education.

Pokimica is also a doctoral student in EPOL and a recipient of the Donna Riechmann Human Resource Development Award. Her research interests include international mobility of the highly skilled, with a focus on STEM; leadership and decision-making; critical systems heuristics; organization development; and research methods and applied statistics.  

They will represent the College of Education at the Postgraduate Research Conference at the University of Hong Kong at the end of May, 2017. This is an excellent opportunity for our students to engage with the global network of researchers in their fields and provides all of us an opportunity to hear research projects from one of the top universities in the world, Hong Kong University.