Meet our Team
Karen McBride, Ed.D. President & Founder
Karen is a career international higher education professional with 16 years of experience cultivating international academic opportunities for American college students as well as visiting students and scholars from abroad to the U.S. She specializes in multi-faceted partnership development, education abroad programming and intercultural training. She is now focused on reconciling environmental sustainability, as well as issues around Climate Action and Climate Justice, with these endeavors. Karen has worked for a large public university and a mid-sized private university in the U.S., two third party study abroad program providers as well as an Italian institute of higher education. She studied abroad in Costa Rica and Scotland, interned abroad in Ireland, was an international graduate student in the United Kingdom and is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Antigua, West Indies). She earned her doctorate in Educational Policy and Administration for International Educators at the University of Minnesota, having conducted research in, and later returning as a Fulbright Specialist to, Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand. She is the Past Chair of NAFSA’s Education Abroad Knowledge Community and, most recently, a member of the Climate Reality Project Leadership Corps.
Shreya Sanjeev, M.Sc. Sustainability Fellow
Shreya is a marine biologist with a vision to create a sustainable future through wholesome education about our environment. She is on a mission to help students and women build a fulfilling life through meaningful engagement with the flora and fauna in their local communities. In her work, this translates to raising awareness about sustainable development by connecting with early childhood educators, student centers in higher education, as well as women in social entrepreneurship. She is currently pursuing a second postgraduate degree (Environmental Conservation Education) at NYU, with a focus on environmental conservation and social entrepreneurship.
Suzanne Bardasz, M.A. E-Learning & Instructional Design Fellow
Suzanne Bardasz has 10+ years' experience teaching and working with English Language Learners from countries all over the world. Her experience includes teaching at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea as well as teaching, coordinating, and creating academic content for the English for Science and Technology program at UC Davis, Division for Continuing and Professional Education. Suzanne loves integrating technology in her teaching, coaching, and advising and was honored by TESOL in 2019 by being one of the first recipients of the Ron Chang Lee Award for Excellence in Classroom Technology.
Mauricio Izquierdo, M.A. Partnership & Business Development Consultant
Mauricio is an International Higher Education Consultant with more than 13 years of experience. Mauricio has accomplished conducted training programs, seminars, webinars, and workshops, developing, leading, and implementing successful educational projects between Latin American institutions and Universities and Colleges in Canada, the United States of America, Europe, Central America, and Africa. Mauricio has studied in Colombia, Germany and the United States and is an active member of the Foundation in Colombia for the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (IOHE). Currently, he is a second-year student in the Ed.D Program of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri.
Karolyn M. Andrews, Ph.D. E-learning & Instructional Design Fellow
Experienced in connecting people across cultures both within academe and outside it, Karolyn has worked, lived in, and/or travelled to 29 countries outside the U.S. Complementing her experiences navigating different cultures, she has used technology to connect people, places, and perspectives both within higher education (University of California, Riverside as director of education abroad; State University of New York – Empire State College, as a director and teacher), and outside it. First using COIL to connect SUNY students in Lebanon with those in New York, she has since helped faculty, staff, and students in Greece, Albania, and Czechia adopt myriad tools that kept them connected in times of crises and beyond.
Julianne Angeli, M.Ed. Volunteer Grants Coordinator
Julianne has a strong background in higher education, particularly in academic advising, program management and study abroad. She currently manages short-term faculty-led study abroad programs at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. She has degrees in French and English/Creative Writing as well as Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. She studied abroad at Université Paul Valéry in Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, France and was a Fulbright grantee in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. She is currently enrolled in a M.A. in French and Francophone Studies. She also has a graduate certificate in Grantsmanship and experience with grant seeking for academic and non-profit entities.