
Tuija Turunen, Dean, UNESCO Professor, Professor of Education, University of Lapland, Finland
Presentation title: Teacher Education in the Arctic: Challenges and opportunities
Professor Tuija Turunen holds a position of Dean at the Faculty of Education, University of Lapland, Finland. She leads UArctic Thematic Network on Teacher Education for Social Justice and Diversity, which currently hosts over twenty member institutions across the circumpolar north. She also leads UNESCO/UNITWIN Network on Teacher Education for Social Justice and Diversity. Professor Turunen’s current research interests focus on teacher education, professional development in higher education, educational transitions, especially starting school, multi-professional work in schools, and preventive school welfare work.

Baocun Liu, Professor and Director, Institute of International and Comparative Education at Beijing Normal University, China
Presentation title: Towards a More Equitable Quality Education: Educational Modernization in China 2035
Professor Baocun LIU is the Director of Institute of International and Comparative Education at Beijing Normal University, President of the Comparative Education Society of Asia, Vice President of China Comparative Education Society. With his specialization and research interests in comparative education, higher education, education policy and management, he has been involved in a wide range of national and international research and consultancy projects. He has published more than 150 papers in journals as well as several books.

Xiangen Hu, Ph.D.
, Professor and Dean, School of Psychology at Central China Normal University (CCNU), China
Presentation title: Case Studies relevant to Equity and Quality of Learning in a Global Digital World
Dr. Xiangen Hu is a professor in the Department of Psychology, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department at The University of Memphis (UofM) and senior researcher at the Institute for Intelligent Systems (IIS) at the UofM and is professor and Dean of the School of Psychology at Central China Normal University (CCNU). Dr. Hu is the Director of Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Partnership Laboratory at the UofM and is a senior researcher in the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior. Dr. Hu's primary research areas include Mathematical Psychology, Research Design and Statistics, and Cognitive Psychology. More specific research interests include General Processing Tree (GPT) models, categorical data analysis, knowledge representation, computerized tutoring, and advanced distributed learning. Dr. Hu has received funding for the above research from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), US Institute of Education Sciences (IES), ADL of the US Department of Defense (DoD), US Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA), US Army Research Laboratories (ARL), US Office of Naval Research (ONR), UofM, and CCNU.
Dr. Hu received his MS in applied mathematics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, MA in social sciences and Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences from the University of California, Irvine.