Grace McCallum has served as a school leader, instructional leader, and teacher on three continents. Currently, she is in her fourth year as the Elementary School Principal at the Frankfurt International School in Germany. FIS is one of the oldest and largest of Europe’s international schools serving students from more than 50 nationalities.

Before going to Frankfurt, Grace served as the Lower School Principal, a Literacy and Learning Coach, and an Elementary School teacher at the Canadian International School of Beijing. In tandem with her teaching role, she was responsible for developing core literacy programs while working extensively with teachers and students in grades K-12. Grace then became the Lower School Principal for grades Preschool through Grade 5 serving 800 students.

In addition to her full-time duties as Lower School Principal on the main campus of the Canadian International School of Beijing, Grace took on the leadership of their new satellite campus. In that Interim Director role, she oversaw the building project, student admissions, teacher recruitment, and curriculum design in opening the new campus. While in Beijing she was named Educational Administrator of the Year in 2016.

Grace has been a high school and elementary school teacher in her home country of Canada and abroad. She holds degrees in English from St. Thomas University and in Education from the University of New Brunswick. She holds a Masters degree in educational leadership and administration from the University of New Brunswick. In preparation for her Educational Doctorate degree in Leadership, Grace has conducted research in international teacher readiness and co-authored a book on the subject called What Should Canada’s Teachers Know?

Formerly a high school English teacher and a new teacher coach, Jennifer Abrams is currently a communications consultant. Her publications include Having Hard Conversations, The Multigenerational Workplace: Communicate, Collaborate & Create Community and Hard Conversations Unpacked - the Whos, Whens and What Ifs and Swimming in the Deep End: Four Foundational Skills for Leading Successful School Initiatives. Her latest book is Stretching Your Learning Edge: Growing (Up) at Work.

Internationally, Jennifer has been invited to present at EARCOS, NESA, ECIS, AISA, AASSA, CEESA and Tri-Association conferences, and at schools across Asia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in South America and North America. More about Jennifer’s work can be found at her website, www.jenniferabrams.com, and on Twitter @jenniferabrams.

Liz passionately believes in the power of education to make the world a better place for adults and young people alike.

Before her current role as CEO and Director of the International School Rheintal, she has been a teacher, head teacher, and director in some of the world’s leading schools. She is a globally recognised lead for professional learning and development and an advocate for our #GlobalProfession.

Alongside this work she is also a global board member for the TES Institute and a strategic lead for WomenEd, with responsibility for Europe and Asia. She is a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and Fellow of RSA. She is an author of the recently published ‘International Perspectives’ chapter of the Amazon number one bestseller ‘10% Braver: Inspiring Women to Lead Education’ book published by Sage (2019), a columnist with TES International and writes for publications such as Schools Week, International Schools Magazine and Independent Schools Magazine. As a visible school leader, Liz advocates for the profession and speaks around the world on the theme of leadership development and the global school workforce as we strive to create outstanding learning for outstanding schools.

These are exciting times in the global village of education and Liz looks forward to connecting, leading and developing learning, realising the potential we have to improve the world and securing bright futures for everyone.

BSc Hons, PGCE MA ED ICP

Having entered the world of education as an adult, learning to read and write at 28, then going on to gain a science degree.

Liza-Jo had 25 Years in the Education Sector, as a teacher progressing into senior leadership roles, always continuing to teach health and social care, economics, politics, childcare and education across all age ranges & levels of learning in Schools, Colleges and University.

Now a self-employed Educator, Coach and NLP practitioner, Liza-Jo delivers professional and personal development courses and coaching to help people become the best version of themselves.

Liza-Jo has a passion for equality and diversity and is an advocate, for those with learning differences and differing abilities.

Laura S. is a sixteen year old student and feminist from Berlin. Her active political career isn´t very long (yet), but since November of last year she has been part of the group keineschuleohnefeminismus. Their goal is to improve the school system so that marginalized groups including women but also non-binary, trans and inter people feel seen, respected and represented.

Marthe W. is a sixteen year old student. She is in the 11th grade at a Berlin high school in Schöneberg, the same as Laura. In her free time she likes to draw and she enjoys yoga but most of the time she hangs out with friends, right now via zoom, to plan more feminist actions.

Born and raised on Long Island, NY in a South Asian family, Elizabeth moved to Germany in 2014 to pursue international teaching experiences. She started her career as a special education teacher in Washington, DC advocating for and serving students with mild to moderate disabilities. Her fervor for justice, inclusion, and equity only grew with time and experience and is deeply embedded in her approaches to learning and teaching. Within her own classroom, Elizabeth strives to cultivate a culture that empowers students to make meaningful connections with one another and to take agency for their learning. Elizabeth currently works as a Primary School Homeroom teacher at Berlin International School.

Dr. Elke Paul is an international wellbeing education expert. She holds a PhD in Comparative Education, a university degree (Diplom) in Social Pedagogy, a certification in Positive Psychology and she is an experienced Yoga and Mediation instructor. Dr. Paul has lived and worked in Europe, USA, Asia and Australia and has gained deep insight into international wellbeing school transformation. Committed to human skills learning, Dr. Paul is currently launching the startup CreatePositive with an interdisciplinary team, to realize a wellbeing education vision at scale.

Prof. Dr. Soeie-Winkels is a professor of industrial and occupational psychology at the German FOM Hochschule. She was appointed 2014 being visibly pregnant and have two children under 6 six years. Due to her professional background in IT strategy consulting she is a digitally savvy lecturer. Being a neuroscientist and a coach helps her to align all her online and offline activities to be student-centric.

She shares her work in TikTok as @profdreleonore (mainly for the next student generation) and in Instagram as @esw4fom (mainly for her students) and @postdoctransformation (mainly for her PhD students and postdocs) and in LinkedIn (by her name). In her online academy #PostdocTransformation, she empowers #scientists to transition their #careers into business or to become visible #professors!