2026-2027 Officers

Chair: 

Candice C. Carter, Ph.D. is an educational researcher and consultant in the USA. Her research topics include conflict transformation, peace education, history/social studies instruction, peace through arts, and peace literacy. She serves in many international and national peace, education, and policy organizations. Candice’s publications in journals and books include a multitude of topics related to peace and education. The book she co-edited Chicken Soup for the Soul, Stories for a Better World (http://chickensoup.peacestories.info) illustrates how peace can be developed in many different contexts of conflict. The book Peace Philosophy in Action (2010) she co-edited with Ravindra Kumar provides information about applied theories in peace actions around the world. Conflict Resolution and Peace Education: Transformations Across Disciplines (2010) she edited illustrates applications of peace education across organizations, including discipline-based courses in university programs. Youth Literature for Peace Education (2014) that she co-authored with Linda Pickett explains development of language, social, and artistic literacy with recent literature. In Social Education for Peace (2015) she describes transdisciplinary instruction for visionary learning. Teaching and Learning for Comprehensive Citizenship: Global Perspectives on Peace Education (2021) that she edited describes research on formal and nonformal instruction worldwide. Educating for Peace through Theatrical Arts: International Perspectives on Peacebuilding Instruction (2022) that she co-edited with Rodrigo Benza Guerra features research on and vignettes of applied performing arts. She co-edited with Raj Dhungana Educating for Peace through Countering Violence: Strategies in Curriculum and Instruction (2023) forefronts prevention of and restoration after harm. Currently, Candice is researching peace-oriented mathematics education. She invites collaborators in that endeavor.

Program Chair:

Cindy Yovanov is a Ph.D. Candidate at Drexel University and incoming Program Chair of the Critical Peace Education SIG. Originally from New Hampshire, Cindy brings an interdisciplinary perspective to her work, having spent more than a decade in finance and wealth management before transitioning to academia. Her dissertation employs critical ethnography to examine dialogue-based peace education in Norwegian secondary schools, exploring how teachers navigate tensions between democratic ideals (free speech) and exclusionary immigration discourse. She completed dialogue facilitator training at the Nansen Peace and Dialogue Center in Lillehammer, Norway, and has presented her research at AERA, CIES, and the Peace & Justice Studies Association. Cindy has two forthcoming publications examining peace education, democratic dialogue, and equity in international education. She is passionate about creating collaborative spaces for SIG members to engage with critical peace education scholarship and practice. When not immersed in research, she enjoys distance running and spending time with her family and her two French Bulldogs.

Secretary:

Kelsey Stokes is a Ph.D. candidate at Baylor University with a concentration in Humanities Education. Before her Ph.D., Kelsey taught K-12 Reading Language Arts for seven years in middle and high school and was a Holocaust and Genocide Prevention educator. She is an emerging scholar in decolonial studies, examining how coloniality and digital colonization impact education, teacher education, and curricular construction, and how decolonial methods and aims may provide more equitable alternatives. Her dissertation study explores bridging decolonial theories with teacher practice in the field as she worked with secondary educators in the humanities to develop a framework for decolonizing their practices in Anglicized spaces. She will defend her dissertation and graduate in Summer 2026, has received several awards at Baylor University for Excellence in Teaching, and recently accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professorship at SUNY Oneonta. 

2025-2026 Officers

Chair: Raul Olmo Fregoso Bailon

Program Chair: Candice C. Carter

Secretary: Cindy Yovanov

2024-2025 Officers

Chair: Sandra Candel 

sandra.candel@unlv.edu 

Sandra Candel obtained her doctoral degree in Curriculum and Instruction, with an emphasis in Cultural Studies, International Education, and Multicultural Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her research focuses on the educational trajectories of U.S.-born transnational students who were forced to attend schools in Mexico due to parental deportation. She is also interested in the importance of deported mothers’ advocacy to improve their children’s academic opportunities. Particularly, Dr. Candel is committed to the academic success of transnational students through the development of transnational-sensitive teaching practices. 

Dr. Candel holds a Master’s degree in International Education with an emphasis in Peace Education from Drexel University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Business from California State University, Fullerton.

SIG Program Chair

Raul Olmo Fregoso Bailon

rfregosobailon@unr.edu

Raul Olmo Fregoso Bailón is Assistant Professor of Equity and Diversity in Education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, United States. He is author of ¿Qué tan diferente es México de la Venezuela de Chávez? Un acercamiento a través de los programas de desayunos escolares (Universidad de Guadalajara). 

He is member of the International Advisory Committee of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education. His scholarship has either been published or is forthcoming in edited collections in Spanish and English, including Handbook of Theory and Research in Cultural Studies and Education (Springer), Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education (Brill) and journals such asEuropean Journal of Cultural Studies, Curriculum Perspectives, Bilingual Research Journal, Revista Historia de la Educación Latinoamericana, Policy Futures in Education, Contextualizaciones Latinoamericanas, Revista Tempos e Espaços em Educação, among other forums.

Secretary 

LuzKarime Calle Diaz

Luzkarime lives and works in Colombia. She is a language teacher educator and research advisor. She has worked in a variety of local and national educational projects to contribute to the improvement of bilingual education in her country. She was the coordinator of the design of the National Suggested Curriculum for English learning, with a focus on peacebuilding and sustainability.
Her current research situates at the intersection of Discourse Studies and Peace Education, with a special interest in critical and positive discourse analysis, critical literacies, and children’s literature for peacebuilding.  She has published relevant chapters and articles about the role of language in peacebuilding processes, positive discourse analysis in language learning and teacher education, representation and peacebuilding in children’s literature, literacies and coloniality resistance in Latin America, among others.
She also belongs to the Womyn Peace Collective, based in St. Louis, with whom she has co-written and published the bilingual children’s book “Un Día de las Madres por la Paz – A Mothers Day for Peace: a herstory”.

Newsletter Co-Editors

LuzKarime Calle Diaz

Luzkarime lives and works in Colombia. She is a language teacher educator and research advisor. She has worked in a variety of local and national educational projects to contribute to the improvement of bilingual education in her country. She was the coordinator of the design of the National Suggested Curriculum for English learning, with a focus on peacebuilding and sustainability.
Her current research situates at the intersection of Discourse Studies and Peace Education, with a special interest in critical and positive discourse analysis, critical literacies, and children’s literature for peacebuilding.  She has published relevant chapters and articles about the role of language in peacebuilding processes, positive discourse analysis in language learning and teacher education, representation and peacebuilding in children’s literature, literacies and coloniality resistance in Latin America, among others.
She also belongs to the Womyn Peace Collective, based in St. Louis, with whom she has co-written and published the bilingual children’s book “Un Día de las Madres por la Paz – A Mothers Day for Peace: a herstory”.

Tina Ahmadi

Tina is a PhD student at Ball State University in Indiana, studying educational psychology. She currently researches restorative practices in classroom settings and received a Cohen Peace Grant to aid this work. Prior to starting her academic career, she taught science at the K-12 level and is passionate about any and all educational research that can improve student learning both in academic subjects as well as personal growth in areas that are not always measured by tests (such as conflict resolution). During her time as a classroom teacher, she served on the school equity team for multiple years and facilitated conversations amongst staff members. Tina holds a dual Masters from Ball State University in Education and Biology and B.S. in Biology and Society from Cornell University. She looks forward to learning about the amazing work of peace education scholars as she works with Luzkarime to highlight and share their work.

2023-2024 Shireen Keyl: shireen.keyl@usu.edu 

2022-2023  Maryam Sharifian: sharifms@jmu.edu

2021-2022  Sue Kasun: skasun@gsu.edu

2020-2021  Margareth Lafontant: lafontantm@aol.com

2019-2020  Shelley Wong: swong1@gmu.edu

2018-2019   Ilham Nasser:  ilham@iiit.org

2017-2018      linda picket:  pickettl@gvsu.edu

2016-2017    candice c. carter: ccarter@peacemaker.st

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