The IEA leadership is made up of diverse individuals that represent primary components of the IEA.  It includes leaders from higher education institutions, educational support organizations, educational technology specialists, and virtual design team leaders.  The primary function of the IEA leadership team is to serve as an organizational support and development tenant for all IEA members.  If you would like to serve as an IEA leader please contact us at iea@aweduserve.org . As the IEA moves forward we will develop an election process for IEA leaders.

Current Leadership:

	Mark Arnold, IEA Coordinating Director - Webmaster. Mark has served as an education technology specialist and instructional design consultant for the past 4 years. He has been a high school teacher for the past eight years and in that period has developed instructional programs that have shaped front line uses of technology.  Many of his classroom practices have served as models for technology integration practices in K-12 schools.  Mark is an accomplished instructional website designer and has been recognized for his innovative instructional technology efforts. He has most recently been a consultant on the Joyce Research Project for Harvard University; an initiative to utilize innovative technologies to address the issues of teacher retention and distance mentoring.  Mark is the founder of VTango, an educational technologies consulting firm and instructional design center focusing on helping educators integrate innovative technologies into their instructional environments. Mark has led several educational initiatives in the Active Worlds environment including several unique intercultural collaborations and professional development collaborations.
	Richard Giles, IEA Technical Director.  Richard is the CEO of Virtually Learning (www.virtuallylearning.com). He has been involved with the Active Worlds platform since 2000, as an independent distributor and member of its beta team.  He has an intimate knowledge of its technology and application. Richard has also designed and consulted on a number of projects in the Active Worlds platform with regards to its educational application.  Richard’s technical support skills were honed during his tenure as a Technical Support agent for one of the UK’s largest Internet service providers. He previously built computer system and had early, extensive experience with computers and the Internet.  Richard also has a number of years experience in business management including recruitment, payroll supervision, staff assessment and management of retail outlets.  Work in various sectors of the service industry solidified Richard’s customer service skills.  Richard has also taught English language since his emigration to Finland from the UK in 2001.
	Rafael Cecconello, Latin American Coordinator.  Rafael is Technology Secretary at Universidad Blas Pascal in Argentina, a member of the Technology Institute in Cordoba Argentina and www.universia.net , he is now finishing his master thesis in Computer Technology in Education at Universidad Nacional de la Plata (Argentina). Rafael will coordinate IEA efforts in the Latin American sector.  He has served on the Active Worlds Educators Panel and actively participated in efforts to utilize technology as a means of fostering intercultural projects between instructors and learners.
	Bonnie DeVarco, IEA Events Director. Bonnie has been an education technology consultant to non-profit, corporate and educational organizations for the past 15 years. She has helped to develop multi-institutional programs for distance and media enhanced learning for the University of California Office of the President and the K-12 and has been a research and development consultant for the UC College Prep Initiative, one of the first statewide virtual high school programs since 1998. Four years ago Bonnie founded the VLearn3D initiative, an international networking hub for educators using multi-user environments to enhance the learning process. Other clients include UC Santa Cruz, Stanford University, UCLA, Cornell University, San Diego and Imperial County Boards of Education, RedAppleOnline, and DigitalSpace.♦ In addition to producing a broad range of educational media, Bonnie has regularly produced conferences and events in cyberspace and in distributed physical locations around the world through Telascience.org, VLearn3D.org, UC Santa Cruz's "Tech Innovation" program, UCLA, the Los Angeles Festival,  the Buckminster Fuller Institute, and now with the IEA. She also lectures worldwide on the culture of cyberspace and innovative learning technologies.
	Patrick McKertcher, IEA Funding Director. Patrick McKercher teaches courses in writing, technology, and the environment at the University of California Santa Cruz. Long involved in using technology in outreach to the public schools, in particular the investigation of virtual reality educational spaces for exploration, collaboration and mentoring, he also serves on several edtech advisory boards.  He is Project Manager for James Burke's Knowledge Web project (www.k-web.org).
	Margaret Corbit, IEA Research Director. Margaret Corbit directs SciCentr.org (www.scicentr.org), the K-20 outreach program of the Cornell Theory Center (CTC) in Ithaca, NY. SciCentr programs include professional development workshops ranging from bioinformatics to development of virtual worlds for STEM education, online exhibits (Web and virtual worlds in AWEDU and CTCUni) featuring Cornell computational science, and SciFair programs including workshops and ongoing programs in 6 middle and high schools across the country. Corbit has an undergraduate degree in Theater Arts (Cornell '71) and an MS in Plant Ecology (Cornell '95).
	Julie Chisholm, IEA Publications Director.  Julie Chisholm is a specialist in technology and pedagogy at the University of Houston Writing Center (www.uh.edu/writecen), where she has served as instructional designer for the UH College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, and teaches and assesses technology-enhanced humanities courses.  Dr. Chisholm is the author of Wired for College:  A Student Guide to Computer-Assisted Learning & WebCT, and Wired for College:  A Student Guide to the Computer Classroom (Prentice Hall).   She has pioneered the use of MUVE technology at the University of Houston: most recently in  Computers and Communication in Human Resource Management:  An Integrated Approach,  where honors students at the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management studied leadership principles and business writing through simulation exercises in an online, 3-D Virtual Hilton Hotel.
	Larissa Gontjarow, IEA Graphic Arts Director.
	Susan Katarzis, IEA 3D Arts Director.
	Alan Lai Chi Kong, Hong Kong Coordinator. Alan has worked as an Art teacher in secondary school in Hong Kong, China for nearly 25 years. He specializes in printmaking and pottery.  Alan is also a adjunct lecturer in art education at a local university. Alan is an experience MUVE curriculum designer and owns and maintains ARTshow world in AWEDU, facilitating various innovative educational technology initiatives that revolve around his duties as an Art instructor.  He is also an accomplished web designer, maintaining web resources for his school system. Alan is a pioneer in ITC integration in the school setting.
	Dan Irmalm, Sweden Coordinator. Dan is a primary school teacher in Sweden.  He is the developer of Klara world in the Active Worlds Educational Universe. Klara