IAFOR > The Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE) > BCE2024 > Speakers

Speakers

This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

Plenary Speakers

  • Eva Martín Álvarez
    Eva Martín Álvarez
    Teacher Center of Aragó, Spain
  • Heitor Alvelos
    Heitor Alvelos
    University of Porto, Portugal
  • Susana Barreto
    Susana Barreto
    University of Porto, Portugal
  • Anne Boddington
    Anne Boddington
    Middlesex University, United Kingdom
  • Joan Delgado
    Joan Delgado
    The Raval's Band, Spain
  • Agustín Gálvez
    Agustín Gálvez
    The Raval's Band, Spain
  • Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
    Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
    University of Valencia, Spain
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    Binghamton University, United States
  • Carme Martínez-Roca
    Carme Martínez-Roca
    Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
  • Mercedes Molina
    Mercedes Molina
    Valencian Community, Spain
  • Dolors Ortega Arévalo
    Dolors Ortega Arévalo
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Baden Offord
    Baden Offord
    Curtin University, Australia
  • Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
    Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
    Curtin University, Australia

Become a Speaker

Excellent plenary speakers are central to our conferences, ensuring that timely, innovative and engaging content is presented to our audiences around the world. If you would like to be considered for a speaking slot at one of our conferences, please apply below.

Apply to Speak

Previous Speakers

View details of programming for past BCE conferences via the links below.

BCE2023
BCE2022 BCE2021 BCE2020
Eva Martín Álvarez
Teacher Center of Aragó, Spain

Biography

Eva Martín Álvarez is a graduate in Foreign Language Teaching and Speech Therapy. Her career has always been in public education, starting in 2005 with home and hospital care. She has worked in various classroom settings as a primary school teacher, mostly in rural schools, and served as the director of an educational innovation centre for four years. She has spent eight years at CPEPA Cella as an adult education teacher and is currently working at a teacher training centre, coordinating various Erasmus+ projects among other roles. Additionally, she has served as the Aragonese Ambassador of EPALE (Electronic Platform for Adult Education in Europe) since 2020.

Panel Presentation (2024) | Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Heitor Alvelos
University of Porto, Portugal

Biography

Heitor Alvelos is Full Professor of Design and Director of The ID+ Research Center at The University of Porto, Portugal, where he coordinates the Unexpected Media Lab. He currently serves as Vice-President of the European Academy of Design and is a Member of Academia Europaea and the European Science Foundation. Professor Alvelos has held prior posts in academic institutions throughout Portugal and internationally, including Course Director of the PhD in Design programme at The University of Porto from 2011 to 2024; Chairman of the Scientific Board (HSS) at The Foundation for Science and Technology from 2016 to 2022, Outreach Director for the Digital Media programme at The University of Austin Portugal from 2010 to 2014, and Senior Tutor in the Drawing Studio at The Royal College of Art, United Kingdom, from 1999 to 2001. Heitor has coordinated a wide range of national and international research projects since 2007 and throughout his academic career, including curation of the FuturePlaces Media Lab for Citizenship from 2008 to 2017 with the University of Texas at Austin, United States, and the recent FCT/H2020 project Anti-Amnesia: Design Research as an Agent for Narrative and Material Regeneration and Reinvention of Vanishing Portuguese Manufacturing Cultures and Techniques.

Workshop Presentation (2024) | Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation: An Exploratory Workshop
Susana Barreto
University of Porto, Portugal

Biography

Susana Barreto is a researcher at LUME, Unexpected Media Lab and Associate Professor of Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, Portugal. In recent years, Professor Barreto has been involved in research projects focused on preserving specialised knowledge at risk of disappearance, specifically those embedded in the experiences of retired professors, artists, researchers, and practitioners in the arts, crafts, and design. Her research interests focus on the role of ethics in visual communication, design and crime, design culture, visual methodologies, and visual/history collections.

Workshop Presentation (2024) | Communicating Knowledge Through the Wreckage of Disinformation: An Exploratory Workshop
Anne Boddington
Middlesex University, United Kingdom

Biography

Professor Anne Boddington is Executive Vice-President and Provost of IAFOR, and oversees the academic programs, research and policies of the forum.

Anne Boddington is Professor Emerita of Design Innovation and has held executive and senior leadership roles in Higher Education including as Dean of Arts & Humanities at the University of Brighton, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, Business & Innovation at Kingston and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Middlesex University.

In 2022 she concluded chairing the Sub Panel (32) for Art & Design: History, Practice & Theory as part of the Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) and has extensive experience in the governance and conduct of peer review, research evaluation and assessment in REF2014 (Sub Panel Deputy Chair and Equality Diversity Advisory Panel [EDAP]) and RAE2008. A former member of AHRC’s Advisory Board, she is the current Chair of the Advisory Board for the UKRI’s National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) programme (£30M), Deputy Chair and a Trustee of the Design Council, the government’s strategic advisor for design, and a member of both the InnoHK Scientific Committee (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ).

Since the 1990’s Anne has worked across the UK and internationally with a wide range of quality assurance, professional, statutory, and regulatory bodies in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Hong Kong, and India.

As an independent consultant she now works as a strategic advisor and mentor and is committed to promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in practice, developing effective governance, supporting career development, reducing bureaucracy, and improving organisational design, integrity, and productivity in the changing workplace.

Special Address (2024) | TBA
Joan Delgado
The Raval's Band, Spain

Biography

Guitarist Joan Delgado is an architect with a passion for music. He studied classical guitar from a young age, over time discovering the magic of the regional 'rumba catalana' sound and its ‘ventilador’. From this moment on, his interest in the guitar shifted to that of an accompanist, blending his background in flamenco with specialised training in the Andalusian guitar.

Mr Delgado has been a constant feature of Barcelona's musical scene since 2010, accompanying musicians in various styles (including flamenco, rumba, bossa nova) and combining the rhythmic base of the solo guitar with traditional latin rhythms. He is known for his collaborations with Swiss-Mexican singer Raissa Avilés and more recently with Argentinian singer Dominique Maucci and French-Tunisian percussionist Narjess Saad.

In addition to his work as a guitarist, composer, and arranger in his rumba catalana band, International del Raval, Mr Delgado has honed his skills as a musician with courses in percussion (including cajón flamenco and palmas) and has played as a trombonist in the Raval's Band and the Txaranga de la Prospe.

Interactive Performance (2024) | The Rumba Catalana: An Interactive Performance by Joan Delgado and Agustín Gálvez
Agustín Gálvez
The Raval's Band, Spain

Biography

Although musician-singer Agustín Gálvez was born in Bilbao, his family came from the region of Aragon of northeastern Spain. Mr Gálvez learned to play the traditional Aragonese bandurria when he was seven years old, performing in local groups throughout his youth. Although music has always been a part of his life, he began studying it seriously after he moved to Barcelona and transitioned from a competitive athletic career. He bought himself a tenor saxophone and began taking classes at the then-recently established Taller de Musics in Barcelona. He gradually added classes in solfeo at the Conservatory of Music and, given the quality of his singing voice, was urged to study singing.

Although he trained as a lyric tenor, he always gravitated towards salsa – boleros, rumbas, huarache – while performing professionally with various bands. He is now part of three Big Jazz bands – The Raval's Band, L'EM Big Band, and the Bibandinou.

Interactive Performance (2024) | The Rumba Catalana: An Interactive Performance by Joan Delgado and Agustín Gálvez
Raúl Fortes-Guerrero
University of Valencia, Spain

Biography

Professor Fortes-Guerrero combines his work as a researcher and lecturer of Japanese language and culture at the University of Valencia’s Area of East Asian Studies with his task as coordinator of the Asia and Oceania Committees at the university’s International Observatory of Intangible Culture and Global Village (UVObserver-Intangible Heritage), linked to the UNESCO Chair for Development Studies. He received his BA in Audiovisual Communication, his BA in History of Art with Special Distinction, and his PhD Cum Laude and International Doctor Mention in History of Art from the University of Valencia, Spain. To this can be added his duties as a member of scientific committees of congresses (XIV Congreso Nacional y V Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Estudios Japoneses en España), peer reviewer for scientific journals (MIRAI. Estudios Japoneses, FOTOCINEMA. Revista Científica de Cine y Fotografía), and exhibitions curator (Hiroshige y su época. Visiones de la naturaleza en el arte japonés y chino del siglo XIX).

His research achievements have awarded him two prestigious fellowships (Association of International Education, Japan; Spanish Ministry of Education and Science’s National Teacher-Training Program) an Erasmus grant for teachers’ mobility, and research posts at Waseda University, Japan; Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom; and the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Professor Fortes-Guerrero has authored a number of articles, books, and book chapters, including , among them the most comprehensive monograph on Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki written in Spanish (Hayao Miyazaki, Akal, 2019) and a reference film guide for his praised movie Spirited Away (“El viaje de Chihiro”. Hayao Miyazaki (2001), Nau Llibres/Octaedro, 2011).

Professor Fortes-Guerrero has also served as a translator for the reference journals “L'Atalante”. Revista de Estudios Cinematográficos and Hojas en la acera. Gaceta trimestral de haiku. He also publishes his tanka poems monthly in Kokoro no Hana, a renowned literary magazine published by the Japanese poetry society Chikuhaku-kai.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | East Wind, West Wind: Intertextuality, Transculturality, and Temporal and Spatial (Re)creations in the Cinema of Miyazaki Hayao
Donald E. Hall
Binghamton University, United States

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Provost Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivities and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Arts, Humanities, Media & Culture division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation (2024): The Work of the University in Perilous Times
Keynote Presentation (2023): There Is No New Normal
Carme Martínez-Roca
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Carme Martínez-Roca is Founder and Director of the Foundation Fem Pedagogia, an NPO aimed at generating learning opportunities for personal fulfilment, social equity and environmental sustainability. She is also an Associate Lecturer at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, where she received her doctorate degree for her thesis on Guidance, competence development and reduction of structural factors for employment. She lectures and is an expert on Educational Guidance. Dr Martínez-Roca has developed programs addressing personal, interpersonal, and structural barriers for academic and professional success in Copenhagen, Denmark Johannesburg, South Africa; and Barcelona, Spain. She has worked extensively with adult basic education centres, secondary education centres, municipalities, supra-municipal bodies, and international organisations such as UNESCO, PNUMA, and The Red Cross. Her recent publications in English are GPS to a better future: career guidance for social justice in Catalonia’s adult learning centres (2019), Career guidance for emancipation. Reclaiming justice for the multitude (2017), and the chapter "Guidance in Catalan Secondary Education" in Career Guidance and Livelihood Planning across the Mediterranean. Challenging Transitions in South Europe and the MENA Region (2017).

Panel Presentation (2024) | Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Mercedes Molina
Valencian Community, Spain

Biography

Mercedes Molina received a degree in Philosophy and Literature specialising in English Philology from The University of Alicante University, Spain, in 1997. After earning her degree, she served as a contract teacher in secondary education in public high schools in the Balearic Islands from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, Ms Molina continued her teaching dedication within the Valencian community as a contract teacher in public adult schools in various cities within the Alicante province of Spain, including Novelda, Petrer, and in Alicante City. She primarily taught languages, including Spanish, Valencian, and English at different levels.

In 2007, she passed the exam for secondary school teaching and became a state civil servant and took up a permanent position as an adult educator in the communicative field (Valencian, Spanish, and English) at the Adults School Center (CFPA) in San Vicent del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain. She currently serves as the headmaster of the Center, a position she has held since 2014.

Panel Presentation (2024) | Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities
Dolors Ortega Arévalo
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Dolors Ortega Arévalo has been a lecturer of Literature in English at the University of Barcelona, Spain since the year 2010, teaching courses focused on Contemporary Fiction in English, Modernist and Postmodernist Literature in English, Medieval Literature, North American Contemporary Fiction, Shakespeare and Postcolonial Literatures, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She received her PhD from the University of Barcelona and she was awarded the European Doctorate Mention for her thesis "Deterritorialising Patriarchal Binary Oppositions: Deleuze, Woolf, Masculinities and Film Adaptation", after a year as a Visiting Doctoral Researcher under the supervision of Dr Humm at the University of East London, United Kingdom. Her research has focused mainly on Modernist writers, Gender Studies, Contemporary British Fiction, Film Adaptations, Postcolonial Literatures and the Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. She has most recently been working on transnationalisms and hybridity and has published the prologue and only authorised annotated Spanish translation of F.S. Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon (2014) as well as the prologue of F.S. Fitzgerald’s Cuentos Rebeldes (2018). She is a member of the consolidated research group Ratnakara with its current project “Rhizomatic Communities: Myths of Belonging in the Indian Ocean World,” funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PGC2018-095648-B-I00). She has been a member of the academic committee of the MA “Construcció i Representació d’Estudis Anglesos” of “Facultat Filologia i Comunicació de la Universitat de Barcelona”, and is currently a member of the executive committee of “Centre d’Estudis Australians i Transnacionals (CEAT)” and the Head of Studies of CFA Rius i Taulet School for Adults in Barcelona.

Panel Presentation (2024): Adult Education and Learning (AEL) in Spain: Challenges and Opportunities

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2022): Adult Education and the ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Lifelong Learning
Baden Offord
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Baden Offord is Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Curtin University, Australia. Born in Aotearoa/New Zealand of Māori and Pākehā heritage, he has lived most of his life in Australia, as well as several years in Spain, South India, and Japan. An internationally respected scholar in human rights, education, sexuality and culture, his latest book (co-edited with Fleay, Hartley, Woldeyes and Chan) is Activating Cultural and Social Change: The Pedagogies of Human Rights (London, Routledge: 2022).

Professor Offord has held academic appointments as the Dr Haruhisa Handa Chair of Human Rights in the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University (2015-2020); as Chair (Visiting Professor) of Australian Studies, Centre for Pacific and American Studies at The University of Tokyo (2010-2011); as Visiting Professor at the University of Barcelona; and as Professor of Cultural Studies and Human Rights at Southern Cross University (1999-2014). He has also had visiting positions at Indiana University, the University of Auckland, and La Trobe University. In 2021 he was appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) ‘for distinguished service in tertiary education in the field of human rights, social justice and cultural diversity.'

Keynote Presentation (2024): The Horizon of our Common Cause: Narratives, Ideas and Conviviality

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2021): Engaging with Culture: A Conversation on Decolonising the Future
Keynote Presentation (2020): The Relevance of the Humanities and Arts in Uncertain Times
Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes
Curtin University, Australia

Biography

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes is a researcher, writer, and poet from Lalibela, Ethiopia. He currently lives in Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (Perth, Western Australia), where he is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin University, Australia. Drawing from the history, philosophy, and experiences of marginalised people, Dr Woldeyes contributes critical insights for reimagining the future and addressing epistemic and racial injustices. He researches African experience and Ethiopian traditions and writes creatively on diasporic lives and belonging. His research in education focuses on applying critical pedagogy and indigenous knowledges for transformative learning. Dr Woldeyes has won various university awards for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching. His publications include the sole authored book Native Colonialism: Education and the Economy of Violence Against Traditions in Ethiopia (New Jersey: The Red Sea Press, 2017), and the co-edited (with Offord, Fleay, Hartley and Chan) Activating Cultural and Social Change: The Pedagogies of Human Rights (London: Routledge, 2022). Currently, Dr Woldeyes is one of the chief investigators in a new Australian Research Council funded discovery project titled Roads to the Future: Infrastructure and new Development in Africa.

Keynote Presentation (2021): Future-Focused Education through Critical Appreciative Dialogue

Previous Presentations

Keynote Presentation (2021): Engaging with Culture: A Conversation on Decolonising the Future