CIIE Staff
Amanda Johnson-Toala, Ph.D.
Director
mjohn275@kent.edu
215 White Hall
330-672-0563
Amanda Johnson-Toala, director of the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education, is a leader and global educator in international higher education initiatives. Over the past 15 years, Amanda’s work has spanned the globe. She has worked in universities in Ecuador and South Korea and developed international university partnerships and federally funded capacity-building programs at Virginia Tech. Before joining Kent State, she was the executive director of the University of New Hampshire Global Student Success Program. She received her PhD at the College of William and Mary in Educational Policy, Planning and Leadership, where she focused her research on higher education change in Ecuador. She has a Masters in TESOL from Eastern Michigan University and a BA in History from Hollins College, an all-women’s college in Roanoke, Virginia. Amanda is a first generation college graduate, a passionate advocate for liberal arts education, and a champion of sustainability practices in global education programming.
Rose Onders
Special Assistant
Rose Onders is the Special Assistant in the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education. Rose serves as a catalyst for the advancement of international and intercultural education which aligns with the University’s global education goals. The Center serves faculty, scholars, domestic and international students, and other members of KSU and other communities. Outside of Kent State University, Rose is the First Fiscal Financial Officer at The Hungarian Cultural Center of Northeast Ohio.
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Simge Engelkiran
Graduate Assistant
Simge was born and raised in North Cyprus. As part of her Graduate Assistantship responsibility to the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education, Simge leads the Aggarwal-Blackburn Visiting Scholars Program which supports international visiting scholars in the College of Education, Health and Human Services. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Foundations and her research focuses on how critical thinking towards politics is encouraged and promoted in Northern Cyprus' middle school Social Studies textbooks. She has her Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Lake Erie College, Ohio and her Bachelors of Science in Psychology from Plymouth University, United Kingdom.
Abdoulaye Fall
Graduate Assistant
Abdoulaye is working on a PhD in Higher Education Administration at Kent State University. He has always loved working with young people and has served as a teacher, a mentor and a guide to generations of students in Senegal, west Africa. Despite his decade of teaching experience at a secondary level, he still felt the need to further his education. That is what made him come to Kent State where he earned a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction. While at KSU he discovered the field of Higher Education as a career. His work as a graduate assistant in the Center for International and Intercultural Education opened his eyes to the need to further international and intercultural education worldwide. He hopes to continue working in the field of international education at the end of his PhD program. Abdoulaye is an avid soccer fan and plays basketball from time to time.