Dr. Daniel Guhr has served as Illuminate Consulting Group’s managing director since 2003. Prior to founding ICG, he worked as a strategy consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Munich and San Francisco, and as a Director of Business Development with SAP in Silicon Valley.
The Illuminate Consulting Group is an international science, research, and academic strategy consulting firm advising the leadership of teaching and research institutions, foundations, governments and public agencies on public policy, institutional development and competition issues.
Since its inception, ICG has served clients around the world, including government ministries, public agencies, associations, universities, colleges, language schools, and secondary schools. ICG covers a broad set of issues in international education, ranging from competition assessments to recruiting and marketing strategies, to research relationship analysis. As a reflection of ICG’s academic research heritage, ICG pursues its own research on internationalization, performance, competition, and teaching issues and publishes Strategy Perspectives and stand-alone reports. Past ICG clients include ministries of education, ministries of foreign affairs and international education promotion agencies in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom; associations such as the British Columbia Council for International Education, the Canadian Consortium for International Education Marketing, the German Academic Exchange Service, the IDEA League and Universities UK; and universities including Australian National University, Bonn University, Griffith University, King’s College London, KTH, Lund University, Macquarie University, Monash University, Northwestern University, Oxford University, UC Santa Cruz, the University of Arizona, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Helsinki.
Guhr holds a D.Phil. in Education and a M.Sc. in Educational Research Methodology from the University of Oxford, as well as a M.A. in Political Science from Brandeis University. He also studied political science at Bonn and Harvard Universities. In addition, he served as a research specialist at the Center for Studies of Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley, and conducted research at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Studies in Berlin.
During his studies, Guhr was awarded 17 scholarships, fellowships, and grants. His doctoral dissertation on Access to Higher Education in Germany and California was published in the series Studies in Comparative Education.
Guhr has authored more than 40 reports, papers, and studies. He has contributed to more than 100 conference sessions, seminars, and workshops.
Guhr currently serves on the Provost’s Council of the Rachel Carson College at the University of California at Santa Cruz; as the Chair of the Brittan Acres School Council; and as a Commissioner for the City of San Carlos. He is the past President of the Oxford University Society’s San Diego branch. He also served on the Council of Bonn University’s Universitätsgesellschaft.
Heather H. Ward is Associate Director for Internationalization and Global Engagement at the American Council on Education (ACE), where she develops programs and resources to support the internationalization of higher education institutions, as well as increased collaboration among higher education institutions and systems worldwide.
Ward leads ACE’s efforts to promote the use of technology to deliver global learning and manages the U.S.-Japan COIL Initiative, designed to strengthen higher education ties between the two countries using virtual exchange.
Before joining ACE in 2014, Ward served as Associate Director for Internationalization and Outreach at George Mason University, where she was responsible for international campus programming, and as Director of International Programs at Mary Baldwin University, where she oversaw education abroad, international student and scholar services, global partnerships, and the Spencer Center for Civic and Global Engagement. Ward was selected to participate in the Fulbright-Nehru Institute Education Administrators seminar in India in 2012, and the DAAD Germany Today program on higher education internationalization in 2015.
Ward’s previous experience in international affairs focused on human rights, criminal justice reform, and immigration. From 1996-2000, she coordinated a comparative project among 10 countries to examine civilian oversight of police in democratic societies with the Vera Institute of Justice. She has held positions with the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, U.S. Department of Justice, Americas Society, and U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Ward holds a Bachelor's degree in Latin American Studies and Spanish from Vanderbilt University and a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University.
Suzanne Ortega became the sixth President of the Council of Graduate Schools on July 1, 2014. For more than five decades, the Council of Graduate Schools has been the voice for the graduate dean community. CGS is the only national organization in the United States dedicated solely to the advancement of graduate education and research. CGS accomplishes its mission through advocacy in the policy arena, innovative research and the development and dissemination of best practices. CGS also acts as a convening authority, organizing major events that bring together graduate deans and other stakeholders to discuss and take action on a broad range of issues affecting graduate education today.
CGS is an authority on global trends in graduate education and a leader in the international graduate community. Their resources and meetings on global issues help members internationalize their campuses, develop sustainable collaborations and prepare students for a global future.
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Before assuming her current position, Ortega served as the University of North Carolina senior vice president for academic affairs (2011-14). Previous appointments include the executive vice president and provost at the University of New Mexico, vice provost and graduate dean at the University of Washington, and the University of Missouri. Ortega's masters and doctoral degrees in sociology were completed at Vanderbilt University.
With primary research interests in mental health epidemiology, health services and race and ethnic relations, Ortega is the author or co-author of numerous journal articles, book chapters and an introductory sociology text, now in its 9th edition. An award-winning teacher, Ortega has also served on a number of review panels for National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and has been the principal investigator or co-investigator on grants totaling more than $9 million in private foundation and federal funds.
Ortega serves or has served on a number of professional association boards and committees, including the boards of the Council of Graduate Schools, the Graduate Record Exam, the National Academies Committees on the Assessment of the Research Doctorate and Revitalizing Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century, the NSF Human Resources Expert Panel and Education and Human Resources Advisory Committee, the North Carolina E-learning Commission and the UNC Press. She currently is a member of the Board of Trustees of American University in the Emirates.
Dr. David A. Sousa is an international educational consultant and author of more than a dozen books that suggest ways that educators and parents can translate current brain research into strategies to improve learning.
A member of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, he has conducted workshops in hundreds of school districts on brain research, instructional skills, and science education at the pre-K-12 and university levels. He has made presentations to more than 200,000 educators at national conventions of educational organizations and to regional and local school districts across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.
Read more about David A. Sousa
Sousa has edited science books and published dozens of articles in leading journals on staff development, science education, and educational research. His most popular books for educators include How the Brain Learns, third edition; How the Special Needs Brain Learns, second edition; How the Gifted Brain Learns; How the Brain Learns to Read; How the Brain Influences Behavior; How the ELL Brain Learns; Differentiation and the Brain, co-written with Carol Tomlinson; and How the Brain Learns Mathematics, which was selected by the Independent Publishers’ Association as one of the best professional development books of 2008. The Leadership Brain suggests ways for educators to lead today’s schools more effectively. His books have been published in French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, and several other languages. His latest book, Brainwork: The Neuroscience of How We Lead Others, is written for business and organizational leaders.
Sousa has been interviewed by Matt Lauer on the NBC Today Show and by NPR about his work with schools using brain research. He has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts, a teaching MA in science from Harvard University, and a doctorate from Rutgers University. His teaching experience covers all levels, from serving as a high school senior science instructor and K-12 director of science to supervisor of instruction and district superintendent in New Jersey schools. He has been an adjunct professor of education at Seton Hall University and a visiting lecturer at Rutgers University.
Prior to his career in New Jersey, Sousa taught at the American School of Paris and served for five years as a Foreign Service officer and science advisor at the USA diplomatic missions in Geneva and Vienna.
Sousa is former president of the National Staff Development Council (now called Learning Forward). He has received numerous awards from professional associations, school districts, and educational foundations for his commitment to research, staff development, and science education. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award and an honorary doctorate from Bridgewater State University and an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Gratz College in Philadelphia.
