Distinguished Advisors

David Boud is Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney and a Senior Fellow of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

He has been involved in research and teaching development in adult, higher and professional education for over 30 years and has contributed extensively to the literature.

Professor Boud's interest lies in the area of how people learn and what can be done to foster their learning. This has taken him to a variety of settings in adult, higher and professional education and prompted an examination of many practices and processes.

His extensive research ranged from new forms of curriculum design such as problem-based learning, negotiated learning and work-based learning to learning practices through the use of reflection, reciprocal peer learning and self and sustainable assessment.

His current focus is in the challenges faced by formal education from new modes of knowledge production, learning in organisations, new practices in doctoral education and the role of assessment for long-term learning.

Stephen Brookfield holds the title of Distinguished University Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota where he recently won the university's Diversity Leadership Teaching & Research Award and also the John Ireland Presidential Award for Outstanding Achievement as a Teacher/Scholar. He also won several awards and an honorary doctor of letters degree in the area of Adult Education. In 2009 he was inducted into the international Adult Education Hall of Fame. In 2008 he also received the 2008 Morris T. Keeton Award of the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning for his outstanding contributions to adult and experiential learning.

Professor Brookfield wrote the 2nd edition of The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom in 2006. This book offers inspiration and down-to-earth advice to new and experienced teachers. In addition, he has also written twelve books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods and critical theory, four of which have won the Cyril O. Houle World Award for Literature in Adult Education (in 1986, 1989, 1996 and 2005).

Ryuta Kawashima is Professor of Institute of Development, Ageing and Cancer at Tohoku University and Director at Smart Ageing International Research Center (SAIRC).

In 2009, He was awarded the Inoue Harushige Prize by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST.) The prize is given to researchers or businesses whose outstanding achievements in technologies have contributed to developing Science and Technology, economies, and improving public welfare in Japan.

Professor Kawashima is trained in neurophysiology and a leading authority in brain imaging. He is also a trained medical doctor, having graduated from Tohoku School of Medicine early in his career. He had spent a few years as a guest researcher at the famed Karolinska Institute in Sweden before returning to Japan to continue his work.

His research is highly sought after by various industry partners, who recognize the relevance of his work in commercialized products and services. For example, his work on the pre-frontal cortex has led to collaborations with Yamaha Motors Co. Ltd and Toyota. The relevance of his research has significant ramifications for various issues in ageing and cognition, such as understanding Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease, and improving intervention and treatment.

To the general public, he is probably most recognizable as the man behind the immensely popular Nintendo DS Games, "Brain Age" and "Brain Age 2". These games are derived based on his research on the stimulation of the pre-frontal cortex. The games have since sold 17 million titles worldwide.

Professor Kawashima published extensively in various peer reviewed journals, such as the European Journal of Neuroscience, Brain and Cognition, and The Journals of Gerontology: Series A.

Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, University of London. She sits on the Board of the Observatory for Borderless Higher Education and the Supervisory Council for FernUniversität in Hagen.

Professor Laurillard leads externally-funded research projects on developing a learning design support environment for teachers, and on developing software interventions for learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia. This work relates closely to her role on the Planning Board of the cross-institutional Centre for Educational Neuroscience (IOE, Birkbeck, UCL).

She was also previously very much involved in learning technologies and e-learning, and developed the first cross-sector e-learning strategy on 'Harnessing Technology'.

Professor Laurillard has given many international keynotes and is published extensively in academic journals and books. Her book Rethinking University Teaching is one of the most widely cited in the field.

Fons Trompenaars is founder and director of Trompenaars Hampden-Turner, an intercultural management firm where he spent over 20 years helping Fortune 500 leaders and professionals manage and solve their business and cultural dilemmas to increase global effectiveness and performance, particularly in the areas of globalization, mergers and acquisition, HR and leadership development.

Professor Trompenaars is globally recognised for his work as a consultant, trainer, motivational speaker and author of many books on the subject of culture and business.  Listed regularly in the past decade as one of the world's most influential, living, management thinkers, he has been awarded the International Professional Practice Area Research Award by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD).

He began his career in the Personnel Division of the Royal Dutch Shell Group in 1981, where he looked at job classification and management development at the Shell Research Laboratories in nine different countries. Together with Charles Hampden Turner, they developed the Seven Dimensions of Culture and Dilemma Reconciliation philosophy into a powerful approach for reconciling cultural differences.

Together with his growing team of consultants, he has translated this approach into innovative, practical and profitable results in various areas of international business for companies such as: BP, Philips, IBM, Heineken, Applied Materials, AMD, VNU, TRW, Mars, Motorola, General Motors, Dow Chemical, CSM, Telfort, Wolters Kluwer, Gerling NCM, Merrill Lynch, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, ABN AMRO, ING, PepsiCo, and Honeywell.

Dr Trompenaars is the author and co-author of 13 books, including the best seller Riding the Waves of Culture, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business, (Nicholas Brealey, 1993). This book has been translated into fourteen languages (including Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Russian) and the Dutch translation of this book was awarded "Book of the Year" by the Order of Experts and Consultants on Organization (OOA).

Thomas Wolever is Professor in the Departments of Nutritional Sciences and Medicine, University of Toronto, and Staff Member, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto. In 1997 he founded GI Testing, Inc. to provide confidential GI testing services to the industry. To cope with the high demand for GI testing and to enable a wider range of clinical research services, Glycemic Index Laboratories, Inc. was formed in 2004 where he holds the title of President.

Professor Wolever obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from Oxford University, UK in 1980, earned his PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto in 1986 and a Doctorate in Medicine from Oxford University in 1993.

His research interests are on the effects of dietary carbohydrates on human physiology and metabolism. He is well known for his work on the glycaemic index which was first developed by him and Dr. David Jenkins with other collaborators while he was a medical student.

Professor Wolever has written or co-authored over 260 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and also authored a book entitled: The Glycaemic Index: A Physiological Classification of Dietary Carbohydrates published by CABI.