Fulbright Teacher Exchanges are programs of the U.S. Department of State, funded by the U.S. Congress.

Through these professional learning programs, elementary and secondary educators, in the United States and around the world, develop their educational practice and bring global knowledge, skills, and perspectives to their schools. Educators forge lasting connections and prepare their students to be future leaders, equipped to work with others around the world to address global challenges.

The MY HERO Project uses media, art and technology to celebrate the best of humanity, one story at a time. We shine a light on positive role models to help students of all ages realize their own potential to make positive change in the world.

Digital Promise is a global nonprofit working to expand opportunity for each learner. We work with educators, researchers, technology leaders, and communities to design, investigate, and scale up innovations that empower learners, especially those who’ve been historically and systematically excluded. Our efforts are multifaceted and grounded in the real-world challenges facing learners and educators—from working to expand K-12 students’ access to high-speed internet, to providing adult learners with opportunities to earn micro-credentials that further their careers and secure their well-being.

The NEA Foundation is a national nonprofit and philanthropic organization based in Washington, DC. Founded by educators, our mission is to work in partnership with others to promote the absolute best in public education. We believe that the most innovative and effective policies and strategies emanate from educators engaged in authentic partnership with policymakers, students, parents, and others who are committed to educational equity, excellence, and opportunity. Through the transformative power of these partnerships, we believe we can improve both students’ and communities’ educational experiences.

Verónica Boix-Mansilla is a Senior Principal Investigator at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. An international expert on global and intercultural education, her research examines conditions that enable individuals to understand and take action on the most pressing issues of our times, from human migration to environmental stewardship. Frameworks and practical tools developed through her research have set the foundations for quality interdisciplinary, global, and intercultural education high high-impact institutions including AFS International, Asia Society, Harvard Project Zero, International Baccalaureate, National Academy of Sciences, National Gallery of Art, OECD, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Smithsonian Institution among others.

Dr. Boix Mansilla co-authored Educating for Global Competence Preparing our students to engage the world, with Tony Jackson (First and Second Edition); Big Picture Thinking: How to educate the whole person for an interconnected world, with Andreas Schleicher; and Educating for Global Competence in Chinese Schools, with Devon Wilson (forthcoming).

Marla Hunter [Hooper] is the founder and president of two companies: Live.Love.Teach!, LLC, a global education consulting firm, and Live. Love. Swim!, LLC a global/mobile swim company that focuses on diversity in aquatics. She has worked with many global organizations, and presented to numerous leaders, to help create more inclusive organizations. As a 1st generation American with Jamaican parentage (born in the South of the United States), Marla is fully aware that diverse backgrounds and voices of our community represented in the collective make us stronger and better equipped to make positive impacts globally. Marla is an expert in providing training in DEIJB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Belonging). She is a graduate professor at American University, where she teaches and coaches incoming educators on the concept of culturally relevant pedagogy in elementary and secondary subjects of STEM, Math, and English Language Arts, and a former professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she helped develop a new teacher preparation program within Social Justice in STEM at the School of Education.

Bonnie Koenig is a consultant working with organizations on their governance, management, and strategic planning with a focus on international engagement. She is a former executive director of Zonta International, a worldwide women’s service organization, and the Council of Great Lakes Governors. She has an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University. Ms. Koenig has lived and worked in Australia, China, France, India and Mauritania, West Africa, as well as having traveled to over 50 other countries.

Lasse Leponiemi is Executive Director and Co-Founder at HundrED.org. HundrED seeks and shares 100 inspiring innovations in education worldwide every year.

Lasse is passionate about youth future orientation and he has worked in education and career-planning since 2006. He is

the Co-Founder and Executive Director at HundrED - a Finnish mission-driven organisation, which seeks and shares inspiring

innovations in education. HundrED selects 100 pedagogically sound education innovations from around the world annually

and helps them spread throughout their wide network of educators in 100+ countries.

Karena Menzie-Ballantyne is a Senior Lecturer in Education at CQUniversity. Her passion, area of research, and RHD supervision is educating for global citizenship, global competence, and sustainable development. In particular, she is interested in practically-oriented, evidence-based research around educators' interpretation and implementation of curricula, pedagogies, and whole school approaches that foster active and global citizenship, student voice and agency, and the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and actions of global competence.

Matt has been the National Partnerships Director for SKY Schools and the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) since 2021. Prior to joining SKY Schools / IAHV, Matt had twelve years of experience as a high school teacher and administrator and fifteen years of non-profit leadership experience.

Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), where she created the first graduate programs (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., Graduate Certificate) in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental sustainability, and animal protection, offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. IHE also offers a Solutionary Micro-credential Program for teachers, a free Solutionary Guidebook for educators, How To Be A Solutionary guidebook for students and changemakers, and award-winning teacher resources to help educators and changemakers bring solutionary practices to students and communities so that together we can effectively solve local and global challenges. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, The World Becomes What You Teach. She is the author of seven books including #1 Amazon best seller in the Philosophy and Social Aspects of Education, The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm, Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. Zoe was named one of Maine Magazine’s 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and is the recipient of the Unity College Women in Environmental Leadership award. She was also a subject of the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series. She holds master’s degrees from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Valparaiso University.

Marilyn Turkovich’s work has been primarily in the areas of global awareness, international education, race and social justice, and instructional design. She has worked internationally in Brazil, Croatia, Guatemala, India, and Japan and with community groups in the USA in developing new program approaches in community involvement, action, and education. She has also been involved in education as a teacher, curriculum coordinator, principal, and director of a teacher training program for the Associated Colleges and Columbia College—Chicago for all of her professional life. Currently, she is the director of the Charter of Compassion International.

Jesse Weisz is the Executive Director of GEEO Teacher Travel Programs. Jesse established GEEO in 2007, inspired by his love for travel which began during high school trips to Europe with the US National Ultimate Frisbee team. Later, he studied film in Sydney and embarked on a sponsored three-month journey through Asia for an Australian tour company. Having visited almost 90 countries, Jesse's passion led him to launch a business development consultancy for European ad agencies in 2003. By 2006, he reduced his consultancy work to focus on GEEO, which, by 2010, secured funding allowing Jesse to commit full-time to a role he had volunteered in for four years.

Libby Giles is the Education Director for the Centres of Asia Pacific Excellence at the University of Waikato, Director of the New Zealand Centre of Global Studies, and a co-founder of Global Citizenship New Zealand. She is a specialist global citizenship education practitioner and consultant, with considerable experience in the field of transformative education. Her approach to global citizenship education is centred in philosophical enquiry and responsibility. Libby seeks to empower and equip people with the knowledge and skills to think critically, act responsibly, and live well. Libby is committed to meeting local and international educational requirements and goals for transforming education, and to helping others do the same.

Ms. Faryal Khan, is the Programme Specialist for Education at the UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok, Thailand and leads the Transforming Learning Futures team in Educational Innovations and Skills Development, EISD Section. Her responsibilities include leading the programmes on Research and Foresight, Artificial Intelligence in Education, Global Citizenship Education, and Education for Sustainable Development. Ms. Khan earned her doctorate in Educational Administration, Planning, and Social Policy (concentration: International Education) from Harvard University (2005). She has two masters’ degrees in Education: from the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan (1989), and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1995). In 2018-2019, she was appointed as Visiting Practitioner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to conduct research on global citizenship education.

Scarlett Lewis is an American activist, educator, and author who founded the non-profit Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement after her son Jesse was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Lewis explained her motivation for founding the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement in a 2018 interview with The Atlantic, saying, “I think the reason that we haven’t been able to solve the school-safety crisis is because we are not thinking in terms of actual solutions. The vast majority of solutions being discussed are not addressing the cause; they’re addressing the effect. The cause of what we’re seeing is anger, disconnection, isolation, lack of resilience, lack of ability to manage emotions.”

Lewis has helped develop and promote her non-profit's programming to be provided for free to parents and educators. Their programs are now taught in over 10,000 schools, in all 50 states and in over 120 countries, serving over 3 million children annually.

Arnd Wächter is an award-winning filmmaker, intercultural educator and social entrepreneur. He founded the non-profit organizations Crossing Borders Education and Morocco Exchange as a creative and proactive response to 9/11. His passion for intentional, cross-cultural interactions drives him to produce professional, feature documentary films. He strongly believes that through well-crafted storytelling, films have the power to put a human face on abstract, complex social issues and make them accessible to large groups of people. This in turn builds empathy and inspires individuals to engage, dialogue and act. Arnd founded Crossing Borders Films and produced the three feature documentaries Crossing Borders, The Dialogue and American Textures. His feature films were selected at over 20 intercultural conferences and 15 international film festivals, winning several awards. He co-produced the cross-cultural landing page for National Geographic Education around his intercultural film trilogy. Arnd and his work appeared in the New York Times, Euronews, the PIE Magazine and on National Public Radio (NPR), among others.