Amy Azano of Virginia Tech, United States, and Stephen Harmon of Georgia Tech, United States, have joined The 2nd IAFOR Conference on Education, Research & Innovation (ERI2022) as members of the Organising Committee.
The Organising Committee is responsible for nominating and vetting Keynote and Featured Speakers; developing the conference programme, including special workshops, panels, targeted sessions, and so forth; event outreach and promotion; recommending and attracting future Organising Committee members; working with IAFOR to select PhD students and early career academics for IAFOR-funded grants and scholarships; and overseeing the reviewing of abstracts submitted to the conference.
To participate in ERI2022 as an audience member, please register for the conference.
Biography
Amy Azano
Virginia Tech, United States
Amy Price Azano, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Rural Education and Adolescent Literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech and focuses her scholarship on issues of equity for rural learners. Dr Azano served as the co-PI on the U.S. Department of Education grant, “Promoting PLACE in Rural Schools,” and is the current PI on two place-based educational grants focused on developing talent in high-poverty rural areas. Dr Azano is a national and international leader in rural education research who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters; chairs the American Educational Research Association’s Rural Education Special Interest Group; and is co-editor of The Rural Educator. She is the co-author of Teaching in Rural Places: Thriving in Rural Classrooms, Schools, and Communities (2021, Routledge); and co-editor of the research monograph Gifted Education in Rural Schools: Developing Place-Based Interventions (2021, Routledge) and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rural Education in the United States (2021, Bloomsbury). Dr Azano is the 2021 recipient of the Brzezinski Memorial Research Award by the National Rural Education Association.
Stephen Harmon
Georgia Tech, United States
Dr Stephen Harmon serves as associate dean of research at Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE), director of educational innovation at the Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U), and as a professor at the Georgia Tech College of Design. At GTPE and C21U, he leads the invention, prototyping, and validation efforts associated with educational innovation and with managing facilities available to all Georgia Tech researchers and faculty members.
His previous position was professor and chair of the Learning Technologies Division in the College of Education and Human Development at Georgia State University.
After majoring in English literature at Furman University, Dr Harmon moved to Upper Egypt to teach fourth-grade English for two years. While traveling through the Middle East and Africa, he realized the tremendous need, and scarce resources, for education and training in developing countries. He returned to the US and earned a masters and doctorate in instructional technology, with a cognate in global policy studies, from the University of Georgia.
Dr Harmon’s research centers on educational uses of emerging technologies and has, for the last few years, focused on transforming higher education to better meet the needs of modern students and society. He is a past president of the Association of Educational Communications and Technology, an international professional association of thousands of educators and others whose activities are directed toward improving instruction through technology.
Dr Harmon also conducts research on educational technology in developing countries. He has worked in several Middle Eastern and African countries, including as a consultant for USAID’s Education for Development and Democracy Initiative, in Botswana.
Dr Harmon has over 120 professional publications and presentations, and was the 2011 recipient of Georgia State University’s Innovative Instruction Award. He was the spring 2016 commencement speaker at Georgia Southern University.
