About Us

Melissa Englert

Liberty, Missouri, USA

melissa.englert@lps53.org

@andmymom

Melissa Englert serves as Gifted Coordinator for Liberty Public Schools in Liberty, Missouri, United States. Previously, she was an Innovation and Learning Coach and has taught gifted education, special education, Title 1 reading, kindergarten, and first grade. She is an alumna of the Teachers for Global Classrooms program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, participated in the Brussels Study Tour of the EU, and is a Google Certified Innovator. She presents at local, regional, and international conferences. Her passion areas are global education, technology integration, professional development, and helping students and educators find and develop their interest areas.

Magdalena Brzezinska

Poznan, Poland, Europe

magdalena.brzezinska@wsb.poznan.pl

Magdalena Brzezinska is a lecturer and instructor at the WSB University, Poznan, Poland, as well as a teacher trainer, certified art therapist and international conference speaker. Her research interest lies in peace education, global skills, creative methodologies of foreign language teaching and technology-enhanced project-based learning. Several of her articles related to these topics have been published. She is passionate about peer collaboration and programs like TED. She collaborates with the British Council and is a member of EFL Talks - Teachers Teaching Teachers and Membership Officer for the Visual Arts Circle.

Chryssie Scarlatos

Thessaloniki, Greece, Europe

goldiescar54@gmail.com, goldiescar@mus.auth.gr

Chryssie Scarlatos is a teacher of music at middle schools, a PhD student at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and an international conference speaker (with presentations on pedagogics of music as well as on musicology). Her research interests include history of music and ethnomusicology. In class, she applies these two disciplines in order to teach music, aiming to subtly convey anti-war and anti-racist messages. As the school choir and orchestra conductor, she has taken part in various music inter-school cooperations and music projects. She has also taken part in e-twinning projects. She is an exponent of student choral singing as a way of promoting cooperation and social skills.

Vincenza Leone

Milan, Italy, Europe

vincenza.leone@unicatt.it

Vincenza Leone Ph.D. is an instructor in Language Methodology at Catholic University of Milan (Italy). She is also a member of EFT Lombardy of the Italian Ministry of Education, a group of expert trainers who takes care of the Italian Ministry National Plan for Digital School. Her main fields of expertise and research are CLIL, new technology, Flipped Learning, and Drama in Education, but she also works on other fields of expertise too, e.g. coding and robotics for children, STEM, especially for girls. She is also an eTwinning Ambassador and a member of Teacher Training Institutions (TTI) Initiative. She presents at national and international conferences and she is a faculty member of FLGI. She strongly believes in the power of the communities of practice and she loves TED in particular.

Mirko Labbri

San Fior - Italy - European Union
mirkolabbri@gmail.com
Teacher in math and science and teacher trainer in ICT, Coding and Robotics, and teaching methodologies. Born in Switzerland, from Italian parents who moved back to Italy when he was 7 years old. His grandmother had a Swiss husband and they lived there all their life. He is accustomed to the best and worst of both countries. He speaks Italian, French, and English occasionally trying to venture in some others, without much success. He had the chance to get a taste of the US (California) and the UK as he spent there an undergraduate and master year respectively. Former private company owner and project manager in ICT project funded by the EU. He live in Northern Italy, not far from Venice. He is a Scientix Ambassador. A long time TED Alumni: a community of professional educators with great coordinators; over time TED meetings have become a "family" reunion. With degree in geology, remote sensing, and education, he is a mountain enthusiast.

Aki Halme

Helsinki, Finland

aki.halme@espoo.fi

Aki Halme is a math and natural sciences teacher at Karakallio School in Espoo, Finland, a junior high school (age 13-15 here, the last three years of first level education). After a hard science youth in competition math and enrollment at the department of Technical Physics at the Helsinki University of Technology, his interests and focus have gradually softened to human sciences of psychology, economics, and communication studies, as well as seven languages (three of which have eroded to a level that is little more than a fond memory) with teacher studies at the University of Helsinki. His passions now also include creative writing and poetry, as well as aspirations to helping create creating a better and kinder world for everyone, TED Alumni was his second time as part of the TED community, a time of fond and happy reunions with like-minded colleagues and friends in a time when the world is so very much in need of light and hope.