Carolyn J. (Carol) Benson, is Associate Professor in International and Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Comparative Education from University of California Los Angeles in 1994. She started her career as an elementary school teacher. From 1998 to 2011
Dr. Benson was based at Stockholm University, first at the Centre for Research on Bilingualism and later at the Centre for University Teaching and Learning, meanwhile expanding her research and consulting in languages and literacies in the Southeast Asia/Pacific, Latin America and Africa regions. Her current work focuses on educational language policy and practice, gender and language, and multilingual curriculum development. She has a large number of publications including the 2013 volume co-edited with Kimmo Kosonen, Language Issues in Comparative Education: Inclusive teaching and learning in non-dominant languages and cultures (Sense Publishers).

Dr. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak is a noted linguist, educationist and activist who has contributed tremendously to the field of languages in India and abroad.
Dr. Pattanayak served as the first Director of the Central Institute for Indian Languages (CIIL) apart from serving as Language Advisor to the NCERT and as committee member for many education related initiatives. He also has many book titles such as Multilingualism and Mother Tongue Education (Oxford University Press) to his credit. Dr. Pattanayak has been decorated with numerous awards over his long-spanning career, including the Padmashree conferred upon him by the Government of India in 1987.

Paola Uccelli is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. With a background in linguistics, she studies socio-cultural and individual differences in language and literacy development throughout the school years. Her research focuses on how different language skills (at the lexical, grammatical, and discourse levels) interact with each other to either promote or hinder advances in language expression and comprehension in monolingual and bilingual students. Uccelli's current projects focus on describing individual trajectories of school-relevant language development; on the design and validation of a research instrument to assess school-relevant language skills in elementary and middle school students; and on understanding how monolingual and multilingual speakers and writers learn to use a variety of discourse structures flexibly and effectively for diverse communicative and learning purposes. Uccelli studied linguistics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and subsequently earned her doctoral degree in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Being a native of Peru, she is particularly interested in Latin America where she collaborates with local researchers and often participates in research conferences and workshops.

Dr. Abul Khair Jalaluddin (A.K. Jalaluddin) is a distinguished educator, educational researcher and thinker, widely known for his contributions to the field of literacy, basic and mass education. He served as the former Joint Director at NCERT, New Delhi and held senior faculty and technical advisory positions at Directorate of Adult Education, as well as several other institutions including the Maulana Azad Centre for Social and Elementary Education, Delhi University. He also assisted the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India in framing the National Education Policy formation (NPE 1986) and led the NCERT team in revising the National Curricular Framework for Elementary and Secondary Education and examination reforms. He is a former UNDP/UNESCO international adviser to the government of Bangladesh and provided technical assistance to BRAC's innovative Chandina Learning Improvement Project (CLIP). His “accelerated literacy” model has become a household name in United Nations educational projects. In 1999 he formed his own charitable public Trust, NEEV (Network of Enterprising Educational Ventures) which is actively engaged in promoting educational change through innovation, research and training.

Dr. Susan E. Malone is a Senior Literacy and Education Consultant at SIL International. She has worked extensively in the field of language and provided technical support in formulation of educational policies in many countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Timor Leste, Laos, Liberia etc. Dr. Malone also has many publications on multilingual and mother tongue-based education to her credit.

Sakil Malik grew up in Bangladesh in the 1970s and 80s, where he witnessed firsthand the marginalization, inequity, and inequality in that country’s education system. In high school, he volunteered for national newspapers and community-based libraries to raise awareness of the education issues in Bangladesh and look for solutions to the education challenges confronting the most vulnerable Bangladeshis, particularly street children. Today, Sakil is DAI’s Senior Global Practice Leader for Education. He has 25 years of experience working in international development and project management, focused on education and education in conflict-affected areas. Most recently, he served as World Learning’s Vice President for Global Development. Sakil served as Director for the Reading within Reach Project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and he led the Global Reading Network Community of Practice, which worked to improve the literacy of primary school children around the world. He has also served as a Project Director for Creative Associates, managing literacy and education programs in Cambodia, India, Tajikistan, Tanzania, and Timor-Leste, in addition to Arabic literacy programs throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Sakil’s career also includes serving as Director of Global Operations for the International Literacy Association, Program Coordinator for the Child Welfare League of America, and Technical Officer for CARE’s office in Bangladesh. Sakil was the Academic Coordinator for the Global Partnership Program at BRAC Bangladesh and a Faculty Member of BRAC Training Division, where he started his career. He received a UNESCO Scholarship to study Peace and Conflict studies at the European Peace University in Austria. (1)M.A., Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Maryland, USA (2) M.A., economics, Aligarh University, India (3) B.A., economics, Aligarh University, India (4)B.Com., commerce, Dhaka University, Bangladesh

Dr. Davidson joined FHI360 as a Senior Technical Advisor in Reading in the Global Education Division in 2018.  Before coming to FHI360, she held the position as the Team Lead for the Reading Team in the E3 Office of Education at USAID. Prior to joining USAID, she was a senior consultant in literacy where she provided support for and contributed to the design on projects funded by USAID and the World Bank in early literacy in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, S.E. Asia, and the South Pacific. She designed one of the first USAID/World Bank early grade reading interventions in Liberia in 2008 and returned to lead a scaled reading intervention in Liberia from 2010 to 2012. She served as the Global Director of Reading Instruction for Room to Read and led the classroom reading interventions in nine countries in S. and S.E. Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She has designed, implemented, and consulted in the development of reading interventions and early grade reading assessments in multiple languages, developed coaching models and professional development modules on supporting teachers in teaching children how to read. She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, and has designed impact evaluations for reading interventions.   Prior to her international work, Dr. Davidson worked as a national consultant to the states for Reading First, and designed and directed several intervention studies in early literacy. As a tenured faculty member at Western Washington University, she developed and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in general education and special education on reading methods, assessment, and early language and literacy acquisition. She also taught graduate courses and conducted research as a faculty member at the University of Maine and the University of Utah. She earned a master’s degree in school and community psychology from Central Florida University and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in special education.

Amita Chudgar is a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. Prior to joining Michigan State, she trained in economics (Mumbai University), development studies (Cambridge University) and economics of education (Stanford University). Through the analysis of diverse, large-scale, national (India), regional (South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa) and cross-national datasets, she explores the role of policy-relevant variables in ensuring equal educational opportunities for disadvantaged children and youth. Chudgar’s research has been supported by various awards including the American Educational Research Association research award, National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation’s Postdoctoral fellowship, The United Nations Children's Fund, the MacArthur Foundation, and most recently the prestigious Lyle Spencer award. She has written extensively in several prominent outlets and some of her publications have won various prestigious awards in the field. She currently serves as a co-editor at Comparative Education Review and serves on the editorial boards of American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, International Journal of Educational Development, Prospects: quarterly review of comparative education. In addition to her scholarship Chudgar also has a prominent leadership presence in the field of international and comparative education. She is the founding chair of South Asia Special Interest Group at the Comparative and International Education Society and has served as elected board member at the Comparative and International Education Society.